Spirit of God,
Spirit of God,
Spirit of Christ
Ecumenical Reflections
on the Filioque Controversy
SPCK
London
WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
Geneva
Faith and Order Paper No. 103
Cover: The Holy Trinity, wall painting in the Church of the Panagia Koubelidiki,
Greece.
Several of the texts included in this volume were translated into English from the
original French or German. We would like to express our thanks to the Language
Service of the World Council of Churches, and to Donald Allchin and Alasdair Heron
for these translations.
Cover design: Paul May
ISBN: 2-8254-0662-7 (WCC)
ISBN: 0-281-03820-1 (SPCK)
© 1981 World Council of Churches, 150 rte de Ferney, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland
Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis and Son Ltd., The Trinity Press, Worcester, and London.
Contents
Preface v
PART I: MEMORANDUM
The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 3
PART II: ESSAYS
A. Historical aspects
The procession of the Holy Spirit according to certain later Greek
Fathers 21
Markos A. Orphanos
Historical development and implications of the filioque controversy . 46
Dietrich Ritschl
B. Developments in the various traditions
Towards an ecumenical agreement on the procession of the Holy Spirit
and the addition of the filioque to the Creed 69
Andre de Halleux
The filioque clause: an Anglican approach 85
Donald Allchin
The filioque in the Old Catholic churches: the chief phases of theo-
logical reflection and church pronouncements 97
Kurt Stalder
The filioque in recent Reformed theology 110
Alasdair Heron
C. Opening a new debate on the procession of the Spirit
The question of the procession of the Holy Spirit and its connection
with the life of the Church 121
Herwig Aldenhoven
The filioque yesterday and today 133
Boris Bobrinskoy
A Roman Catholic view of the position now reached in the question
of the filioque 149
Jean-Miguel Garrigues
Theological proposals towards the resolution of the filioque
controversy 164
Jurgen Moltmann
The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and his relation to
the Son, as the basis of our deification and adoption 174
Dumitru Staniloae
PREFACE
In the last two years two consultations were organized by the Faith and
Order Commission of the World Council of Churches to study the famous
controversy over the filioque formula in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan
Creed. Ways and means of bringing this difficult question nearer to solution
were examined by a small group of theologians from the Eastern Orthodox
and various western traditions. The first consultation (26-29 October 1978)
produced a report which was then submitted to a wider circle of specialists
for their comments. The text of this report was thoroughly revised at the
second consultation (23-27 May 1979) and then presented to the Faith and
Order Standing Commission in the summer of 1979. The Commission set
the seal of its approval on it to the extent of recommending that it be shared
with the churches. The present volume contains the report in its final form
as well as the papers presented at the two consultations.
Why did the Faith and Order Commission undertake this study? The
answer is simple: the addition of the words “and from the Son” to the text
of the Nicene Creed is one of the issues which divided East and West for
many centuries past and still divides them today. The restoration of unity is
inconceivable if agreement is not reached on the formal and substantial
justification for this formula. The fact that individual western churches have
already broached the question in discussions with the Orthodox Church
lends added urgency to the ecumenical debate. After a careful consideration
of all aspects of the matter, the Old Catholic Church has come to the
conclusion that the filioque is not to be recited in the liturgy. The Anglican
Communion is seriously considering taking the same step. If separate deci-
sions are to be avoided, it is essential that the churches should consider the
question of the filioque together. The way to communion among the churches
can be opened up only by an agreement for which they take joint
responsibility.
The only meaningful context in which to raise and deal with the special
question of the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and of the
vi Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
role played by the Son in this procession is that of the trinitarian understand-
ing of God. The question of the filioque thus becomes an opportunity to
develop together the meaning of the Trinity. And could any undertaking be
more important than this for the development of common theological, spiri-
tual and liturgical perspectives?
The report establishes that the words “and from the Son” are an addition
and it concludes, therefore, that all churches should revert to the original
text of the Nicene Creed as the normative formulation. This does not mean
simply “dropping” the addition. Rather we must investigate further the
problem which the West sought to solve by this formula. The report attaches
the greatest importance to the readiness of the churches to engage in a new
discussion about God. That the understanding of God is not a matter of
controversy and can therefore be omitted from the dialogue is an assumption
which has often been made in the ecumenical movement. In view of the
enormous and novel challenges of our time, theology is faced anew with the
question of how we are to speak of God on the basis of the revelation in
Christ.
Cordial thanks are due to those who took part in the consultations for
making their papers available for publication. But I would like especially to
express our gratitude to the Johann Wolfgang van Goethe Foundation for
welcoming both meetings in the beautiful premises of Schloss Klingenthal
near Strasbourg; the warm hospitality of Dr Marie-Paule Stintzi contributed
much to the success of the conversations.
* * *
Sixteen centuries have passed since the Council of Constantinople (381)
in which the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed originated. Received by the
Church as the expression of the common apostolic faith it has tragically also
become a source of disagreement and disunity. The findings of this ecu-
menical debate are offered for discussion in a year in which the Council is
commemorated by the churches in response to the call of Ecumenical Patri-
arch Dimitrios I. May the common reflection on the meaning of the Creed
inaugurate a century in which the common calling and the unity of the
churches will become more visible!
Lukas Vischer
PART I
MEMORANDUM
THE FILIOQUE CLAUSE
IN ECUMENICAL PERSPECTIVE
Preliminary note
The following memorandum has been drawn up by a group of theologians
from eastern and different western traditions who met at Schloss Klingenthal
near Strasbourg, France, 26-29 October 1978 and 23-27 May 1979. An
initial draft was composed after the first meeting and circulated for comment
to a number of other specialists. At the second meeting, the document was
revised and expanded in the light of their reactions. A large number of
specially prepared papers was presented at these meetings.
I. Introduction
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, often called simply “the Nicene
Creed”, which dates from the fourth century, has for over 1500 years been
regarded as a primary formulation of the common faith of the Christian
people. It has been used in many ways in the worship and teaching of
different churches throughout the world, and holds a unique place as the
Creed which is most widely received and recognized throughout the various
Christian traditions.
There have, however, been significant differences between churches in
the use that they have made of this Creed and in the authority they have
ascribed to it. In the Eastern Orthodox churches it displaced all other credal
formulations and came to be seen as the authoritative expression of the faith.
In the western Church it only more gradually came into regular use alongside
other, distinctively western formulae: the so-called Apostles’ and Athanasian
Creeds. It became and has remained the Creed regularly used in the Roman
Catholic mass. At the Reformation, many of the Protestant churches (in-
cluding the Anglican) continued to use it, or made reference to it in their
own confessions of faith, though some have in effect ceased to make any
use of it at all.
4 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Alongside these variations in attitude and practice, there is a further
contrast between the broad eastern and western traditions. In the West the
wording of the third article was expanded by the addition of the “ filioque
clause”. This supplemented the description of the Holy Spirit as “proceeding
from the Father” with the Latin filioque , “and (from) the Son”. In the
background to this lay certain differences between the eastern and western
approaches to understanding and expressing the mystery of the Trinity. The
clause itself was one of several principal factors in the schism between East
and West in the Middle Ages, and has continued to the present day to be
a matter of controversy and a cause of offence to the Orthodox churches.
So the Nicene Creed itself has come to be a focus of division rather than of
unity in common faith.
Three distinct issues may be recognized in this situation. First, there is
the divergence of approach to the Trinity. Second, we are presented with
the particular problem of the wording of the Creed and the filioque. Third,
the question needs to be faced of the standing and potential ecumenical
significance of the Nicene Creed itself. All of these matters have taken on
a new urgency and relevance in our present time. There is a widespread
feeling that, especially in the West, the trinitarian nature of God needs again
to be brought into the centre of Christian theological concern. The new
ecumenical climate of recent years poses afresh the question of a reconcili-
ation between East and West - a question which inevitably involves that of
the filioque. This in turn gives a new sharpness to the question whether the
Nicene Creed itself can again be received and appropriated afresh as a
shared statement of the Christian faith. These questions are a challenge to
all the churches; they are placed on the agenda by our present theological
and ecumenical setting; and they deserve to be widely and seriously
considered.
II. The Nicene Creed and the filioque clause
A. The history and reception of the Nicene Creed
In spite of its name, this Creed is not in fact that of the Council of Nicea
(A.D. 325). In the form in which it has been handed down, it dates from
the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, though it does include the main
emphases of the original formulation of Nicea, if not always in exactly the
same words. The full text of the Creed was reproduced by the Council of
Chalcedon in A.D. 451, and since then it has been seen as the classical and
definitive expression of the orthodox Christian faith as developed and ar-
ticulated in the controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries.
In the Eastern Orthodox churches, this same Creed was also seen as the
The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 5
heir and beneficiary of the instruction made by the Council of Ephesus
(A.D. 431) that no other Creed than that of Nicea should be used. The
force of this regulation was primarily directed against any attempt to return
behind the affirmations of the Council of Nicea concerning the full divinity
of Jesus Christ; but it came in the East to have a further significance as
ratifying the sanctity of the Creed framed at Constantinople, which was seen
as possessing the same authority, and with it, the same exclusive status.
In the West, by contrast, the process of “reception” of this Creed was a
slower one in the sense that while its canonical authority was not questioned,
its actual use in the life and teaching of the Church was for many centuries
distinctly limited. The western Church already possessed and continued to
use the various local forms of the Old Roman Creed, from which in the
eighth century the “Apostles’ Creed” finally evolved; and also the “Athan-
asian Creed”, which is not in any way connected with Athanasius, but dates
from sixth century Gaul. The use of the Nicene Creed spread gradually
through the western Church, and it was only as late as ca. 1014 that its
singing was introduced into the liturgy of the mass in Rome itself. It was at
the same time that the addition of the filioque was sanctioned by the Pope.
B. The addition of the filioque
Although the filioque was officially added to the Creed throughout the
western Church only in the eleventh century, its history runs back very much
further. As early as the fourth century, some Latin writers spoke of the
Holy Spirit as “proceeding from the Father and the Son”, or “from both”,
or in other similar ways directly linked the person of the Son with the
procession of the Spirit. This understanding was developed further by Au-
gustine in the early fifth century, and between his day and the eighth century
it spread throughout the West. What may be called ‘ filioque theology” thus
came to be deeply anchored in the minds and hearts of western Christians.
This represents the first stage of the development and the necessary back-
ground to what followed.
The next stage was the appearance of the filioque in official statements -
e.g. the Canons of the Council of Toledo in A.D. 589 - and in the Athanasian
Creed. At that time there was no apparent intention thereby to oppose the
teaching of the Church in the East. (Many scholars have thought that the
main concern was to counter western forms of Arianism by using the filioque
as an affirmation of the divine status of the Son.)
By the end of the eighth century the filioque had come in many places in
the West to be added to the Nicene Creed itself - one of these places being
the court of the Emperor Charlemagne at Aachen. Charlemagne and his
6 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
theologians attempted to persuade Pope Leo III (795-816) to ratify the
alteration; but Leo, though seeming to agree with the theology of the
filioque, refused to sanction an addition to the wording of the Creed which
had been drawn up by an Ecumenical Council and reaffirmed by others. The
expanded form of the Creed continued, however, to be widely used in the
West; and two centuries later Pope Benedict VIII (1012-1024) finally au-
thorized and approved it. Since then the western form of the Creed has
included the filioque.
Attempts were made at the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439)
to impose the filioque on the East. These attempts were unsuccessful, how-
ever, and their effect in the long run was to intensify the bitterness felt in
the eastern Church at the unilateral action of the West - not least because
of the anathema which Lyons laid on those who rejected the clause. Eastern
and western theologies of the Trinity and of the procession of the Holy
Spirit came very much to stand over against each other, and the differences
in approach which the filioque problem highlighted hardened into what were
felt to be mutually exclusive positions.
While the Reformers were very critical of many of the developments in
medieval theology, the question of the filioque was not seriously raised in
the sixteenth century. Most Protestant churches accepted the clause and its
underlying theology and continued to subscribe to both. It has only been
much more recently that a new perspective has opened up. The last hundred
years have brought many fresh contacts between East and West and enabled
a new dialogue between them - a dialogue that is still growing today. The
question of the filioque is now being discussed in a climate very different
from that of the medieval Councils.
In this new climate, the possibility of returning to the original wording of
the Creed has suggested itself to more than one western Church. The Old
Catholic churches already began to make this change in the nineteenth
century; the Lambeth Conference of 1978 has asked the churches of the
Anglican Communion to consider doing the same; other churches too are
exploring the question. It is our hope that yet more will give it serious
consideration. Even those which make relatively little (or even no) use of
the Nicene Creed have an interest in the matter in so far as they too are
heirs of the western theological tradition and concerned both with the issues
involved in the filioque and the progress of the ecumenical movement.
III. The Trinity and the procession of the Holy Spirit
The filioque question demands some consideration of the relation between
the doctrines of the Trinity, of the “eternal procession” and of the “temporal
The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 7
mission” of the Holy Spirit. This is offered in the following four sub-sections
which deal in turn with the Church’s faith in and experience of the triune
God (A), with biblical reflections upon the Spirit and the mystery of Christ
(B), with the implications of the Spirit’s temporal mission for relations
between the persons of the Trinity (C), and with the way in which the
Church always has to do with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (D).
A. From its beginnings in the second and third centuries, the doctrine of
the Trinity was intended to be a help for Christian believers, not an obstacle
or an abstract intellectual superimposition upon the “simple faith”. For it
was in simple faith that the early Christians experienced the presence of the
triune God; and it was in that presence that were gathered and held together
the remembrance of the God of Israel, the presence within the congregation
of the crucified and risen Christ and, from Pentecost, the power to hope in
God’s coming Kingdom which is the future of humankind.
This perception, celebrated in worship, strengthened and renewed by
word and sacrament, and expressed in the individual and corporate lives and
actions of believers, was not “dogmatic” or “conceptual” in the sense of
enabling them to distinguish between “the advent of the risen Christ”, “the
presence of the Spirit” and “the presence of the Father”. Their experience
was - as it still is today - of the unity of the triune God. Both their prayerful
acceptance and their rational understanding of this gift of God’s presence,
however, were articulated in terms of his triune life and being. This enabled
the early Church - as it enables the Church today - to see itself as belonging
within the story which God began with Abraham and Sara, which culminated
in the coming, teaching, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus
Christ, and which marks out the way of the Church ever since Pentecost.
It was for this reason that the early Fathers gave witness to God’s activity
in Israel, his speaking through the prophets, in Jesus of Nazareth, and in
the apostolic Church, as the activity of the triune God. They did not deduce
their theological conclusions from a preconceived trinitarian concept. So,
too, today in any reconsideration of trinitarian concepts as they have come
to be developed, it is desirable that we should retrace and follow through
the cognitive process of the early Church. The communion of the Church as
articulated in ecclesiology seems to be the appropriate theological starting
point for re-examining the function of trinitarian thought in the Church’s
faith, life and work. God is received, thought of and praised in the Church
as God in his triune life: as Creator and God of Israel, as God the Logos
and Son, as God the Spirit. It is this insight which preserves the biblical and
historical roots of Christian faith in the living God.
B. The most personal Christian experience grafts us into the very heart
8 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
of the mystery of Christ: sharing in the work of salvation, we are introduced
into the divine life, into the heart of the deepest trinitarian intimacy. It is
thus that, through the whole experience of the Church, the mystery of Christ
is realized in a trinitarian perspective of salvation. New life in Christ is
inseparable from the work of the Spirit. In its depths, the Church is nothing
other than the manifestation of the risen Lord, whom the Holy Spirit renders
present in the eucharistic community of the Church. There is a profound
correspondence between the mystery of the Church and of Christian life on
the one side, and the earthly life and work of Jesus himself on the other. It
is thus not possible to speak of the mystery of Christ, of his person and
work, without at once speaking not only of his relation to the Father, but
also of the Holy Spirit.
In the earthly life of Jesus, the Spirit seems to be focused in him. The
Spirit brings about his conception and birth (Matt. 1:18, Luke 1:35), mani-
fests him at his baptism in the Jordan (Mark 1:9-11 and par.), drives him
into the desert to be tested (Mark 1:12-13 and par.), empowers him in his
return to Galilee (Luke 4:14) and rests in fullness upon him (Luke 4:18). It
is thus in the permanent presence of the Spirit that Jesus himself lives, prays,
acts, speaks and heals. It is in the Spirit and through the Spirit that Jesus is
turned totally towards the Father, and also totally towards humankind,
giving his life for the life of the world. Through his passion, his sacrifice on
the cross “through the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14), and his resurrection by
the power of the Spirit (Rom. 8:11, etc.), it is in the Spirit that henceforth
Jesus comes to us in his risen body, penetrated and suffused by the energies
of the Spirit, and communicating to us in our turn power from on high. The
humanity of Christ, full of the Holy Spirit, is real and authentic humanity;
and it is by the Holy Spirit that we, too, become a new creation (John 3:5),
sharing in the humanity of Christ (Eph. 2:15). We are “christified”, “made
christs”, in the Church by the indwelling in us of the Holy Spirit who
communicates the very life of Christ to us, who in Christ makes us the
brothers and sisters of Christ, and strengthens us in our new condition as
the adopted children of the heavenly Father.
The Spirit thus appears in the New Testament at once as he who rests
upon Jesus and fills him in his humanity, and as he whom Jesus promises to
send us from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father
(John 15:26). The Spirit therefore does not have an action separate from
that of Christ himself. He acts in us so that Christ may be our iife (Col.
3:4), so that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:12). The Spirit,
who proceeds from the Father, is also therefore the Spirit of Jesus Christ
himself (Rom. 8:9. Phil. 1:19) who rests in him (Luke 3:22, John 1:32-33),
The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 9
in whom alone we can confess Jesus as Lord (I Cor. 12:3), the Spirit of the
Son (Gal. 4:6). These and many other New Testament passages reflect the
Church’s deep experience of the Spirit-filled and Spirit-giving being of Jesus
himself. Here can be seen a full and constant reciprocity of the incarnate
Word and the Holy Spirit, a reciprocity whose depths are further revealed
in the fact that the sending of the Spirit had as its result the formation of the
mystical body of Christ, the Church. This reciprocity must be emphasized
as a fundamental principle of Christian theology. It is from this interaction,
at once christological and trinitarian, that the divine plan for the salvation
of the world is to be viewed in its continuity and coherence from the
beginning of creation and the call of Israel to the coming of Christ. Further,
all the life of the Church, indeed all Christian life, carries the imprint of this
reciprocity from the time of Pentecost till the final coming of Christ. If it
loses that vision, it can only suffer grievously from its lack.
C. The points of the Holy Spirit’s contact with God’s people are manifold.
While one might be inclined to connect the coming of the Spirit exclusively
with Pentecost, it must be remembered that any such limitation tends to-
wards Marcionism in its patent neglect of the Old Testament witness to the
presence and activity of the Spirit in Israel. Moreover, the Spirit is confessed
to have been instrumental in the coming of Christ (“conceived by the Holy
Spirit”), and to have been the life-giving power of God in his resurrection.
Jesus during his ministry promised the sending of the Spirit, and the earliest
Christians understood the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost to be the
fulfilment of that promise. Thus the Spirit precedes the coming of Jesus, is
active throughout his life, death and resurrection, and is also sent as the
Paraclete by Jesus to the believers, who by this sending and receiving are
constituted the Church. This chain of observations suggests that it would be
insufficient and indeed illegitimate to “read back” into the Trinity only those
New Testament passages which refer to the sending of the Spirit by Jesus
Christ.
In the New Testament, the relation between the Spirit and Jesus Christ
is not described solely in a linear or one-directional fashion. On the contrary,
it is clear that there is a mutuality and reciprocity which must be taken into
account in theological reflection upon the Trinity itself. The “eternal pro-
cession” of the Spirit of which trinitarian theology speaks as the ground
which underlies and is opened up to us in his “temporal mission” cannot be
properly characterized if only one aspect of the latter is taken into account.
This raises certain questions about the filioque. Does it involve an unbiblical
subordination of the Spirit to the Son? Does it do justice to the necessary
reciprocity between the Son and the Spirit? If its intention is to safeguard
10 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
the insight that the Holy Spirit is truly the Spirit of the Father in Jesus
Christ , could other arguments and formulations defend that insight as well
or even better? Is it possible that the filioque , or certain understandings of
it, may have been understandable and indeed helpful in their essential
intention in the context of particular theological debates, but yet inadequate
as articulations of a full or balanced doctrine of the Trinity?
In approaching these questions it is imperative to remember that any
reference to the Trinity is originally doxological in nature. This is all the
more important in our own time, when talk of God is so severely challenged
and trinitarian thinking so obviously neglected. Doxology is not merely the
language of direct prayer and praise, but all forms of thought, feeling, action
and hope directed and offered by believers to the living God. Doxological
affirmations are therefore not primarily definitions or descriptions. They are
performative and ascriptive, lines of thought, speech and action which, as
they are offered, open up into the living reality of God himself. Trinitarian
thought in the early Church originated within that doxological context, and
only within it are we able to speak of the “inner life” of the triune God.
Further, as fathers like Athanasius and Basil made clear, all such doxological
references to that inner life must be checked by reference back to the biblical
message concerning God’s activity and presence with his people.
D. Conceptual distinctions between the “economic” and “immanent”
Trinity, or between “temporal mission” and “eternal procession” should not
be taken as separating off from each other two quite different realities which
must then be somehow re-connected. Rather, they serve the witness to the
triune God as the living God. In calling upon God, we turn and open
ourselves to the God who is none other than he has revealed himself in his
Word. This calling upon his name is the essential expression of doxology,
that is, of trust, praise and thanks that the living God from eternity to
eternity was, is and will be none other (“immanent Trinity”) than he has
shown himself to be in history (“economic Trinity”).
In our calling upon him, the mystery of the Trinity itself is actualized. So
we pray with Christ and in the power of the Spirit when we call on God his
Father as our Father. So too we have a share in the joy of God when we
allow ourselves to be told again that “for us a child is born”. So too we pray
in the Holy Spirit and he intercedes in us when we call on the Father in the
name of the Son. In the calling upon the Father, the Spirit who proceeds
from the Father, and we who worship in the Spirit, witness to Jesus Christ
(John 15:26-7). The Spirit who proceeds from the Father of the Son is he
whom the risen and ascended Christ sends, and by whose reception we are
made the children of God.
The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 11
IV. Theological aspects of the filioque
A. The approaches of eastern and western trinitarian theology
In its origins the Latin tradition of the filioque served as an affirmation of
the consubstantiality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and also gave
expression to the deeply-rooted concern in western piety to declare that the
Spirit is the Spirit of the Son. The theology of Augustine marked a definite
stage in the development of this tradition by articulating with particular
clarity its fundamental concern for the oneness of the divine being, and by
setting out on that basis to conceive of the Trinity in terms of a dialectic of
oneness-in-threeness and threeness-in-oneness. In subsequent interpretation
and application, this approach crystallized into a formal system which be-
came the standard western teaching, and to which all the authority of the
name of Augustine himself was attached. The introduction in the West of
the logical procedures of medieval scholastic theology brought this form of
trinitarian thinking to a new level of definition. One result of this develop-
ment was to make dialogue with the East increasingly more difficult: hence
arose the polemical frustrations of medieval controversy.
The eastern tradition of teaching about the Holy Trinity had from the
beginnings somewhat different emphases. A central concern from the time
of the Cappadocians in the late fourth century has been to affirm the
irreducible distinctiveness of each of the divine hypostases (or, in the term
more familiar in the West, “persons”) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
and at the same time, the uniqueness of the Father as the sole principle
(apxfi), “source” (tithti) and “cause” (ama) of divinity. Thus, while Greek
theologians could and did use such expressions as “from the Father through
the Son”, they could not accept the western “from the Father and the Son”
as a suitable formulation for describing the procession of the Holy Spirit.
This difference in emphasis, combined with the virtual absence in the East
of the scholastic methods developed in the medieval West, made it difficult
for the eastern Church to appreciate the western attitude. The controversies
of the ninth century between Constantinople and the West - controversies,
it must be said, which were as much political as theological - were the
occasion of a further definition of the eastern position in the teaching of
Patriarch Photius and his famous formula, “the Spirit proceeds from the
Father alone”. This tradition was continued and further developed by the
work of Gregory the Cypriot and Gregory Palamas. Both these writers
sought to respond to the controversy with the West by distinguishing between
the procession of the Spirit from the Father and an “eternal manifestation
of the Spirit through the Son”.
What is striking is that, despite the evident differences between East and
12 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
West before the eleventh century, communion was maintained between
them. The two traditions of trinitarian theological teaching, though divergent
and at times in friction with each other, were not considered to be mutually
exclusive. In the seventh century indeed, a notable attempt to explain and
reconcile them was made in the work of Maximus the Confessor, a Greek
Father who spent a large part of his life in the West. Only after the eleventh
century did the two traditions come to be felt to be altogether irreconcilable.
B. Two CENTRAL ISSUES
In the debate between East and West about the fdioque , two sets of
questions can be seen as central. The first has to do with the traditional
eastern insistence that the Spirit proceeds from the Father “alone”; the
second with the western concern to discern a connexion between the Son
and the procession of the Spirit.
L Procession from the Father “alone”
According to the eastern tradition, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father alone for the following reasons:
a) The Father is the principle and cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit
because it is an “hypostatic” (or “personal”) property of the Father (and not
of the shared divine nature) to “bring forth” the other two persons. The
Son and the Holy Spirit do not derive their existence from the common
essence, but from the hypostasis of the Father, from which the divine essence
is conferred.
b) On the ground of the distinction between ousia (“being” or “essence”)
and hypostasis - which corresponds to the difference between what is “com-
mon” or “shared” and what is “particular” - the common properties of the
divine nature do not apply to the hypostasis, and the distinctive properties
of each of the three hypostases do not belong either to the common nature
or to the other two hypostases. On account of his own hypostatic property,
the Father derives his being from himself, and brings forth the Son and the
Holy Spirit. The Son comes forth by yevvTicris (“generation” or “beget-
ting”), and his hypostatic property is to be begotten. The Holy Spirit comes
forth by eKTropewis (“procession”), and that is his own distinctive hypostatic
property. Because these hypostatic properties are not interchangeable or
confused, the Father is the only cause of the being of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and they are themselves caused by him.
c) In no way does the Father communicate or convey his own particular
hypostatic property to either of the other two persons. Any idea that the
Son together with the Father is the cause of the Holy Spirit’s “mode of
The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 13
existence” (tpottos rfis vrrdp^eojs) was felt in the East to introduce two
causes, two sources, two principles into the Holy Trinity. It is of course
impossible to reconcile any such teaching with the divine ixovapxta (“mon-
archy”) of the Father, that is, with his being the sole “principle” (dpxfi).
d) In asserting in its theology, though not in the wording of the Creed,
that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, the eastern Church does not
believe that it is adding to the meaning of the original statement of the
Creed. It holds, rather, that it is merely clarifying what was implicit in that
original wording but had come to be denied by the West.
From a western point of view, which at the same time appreciates the
concerns of the eastern tradition, it may be said that neither the early Latin
Fathers, such as Ambrose and Augustine, nor the subsequent medieval
tradition ever believed that they were damaging the principle of the Father’s
“monarchy” by affirming the filioque. The West declared itself to be as
much attached to this principle as were the eastern Fathers. But by describing
the Son as the “secondary cause” of the procession of the Holy Spirit, the
doctrine of the filioque gave the impression of introducing “two principles”
into the Holy Trinity; and by treating the Son in his consubstantiality and
unity with the Father as the origin of the person of the Holy Spirit, it seemed
to obscure the difference between the persons of the Father and the Son.
Nonetheless, an important fact remains. Quite apart from the - more or
less happy or unhappy - formulations of the filioque advanced in western
theology (which one must be careful not to treat as dogmas), and even if
western Christians are prepared simply to confess in the original terms of
the Creed that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” (without men-
tioning any secondary causality on the part of the Son), many would still
maintain that the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father as the Father is
also Father of the Son. Without necessarily wishing to insist on their own
traditional understanding of a logical priority of the generation of the Son
over the procession of the Spirit, they believe nonetheless that the trinitarian
order (or, in Greek, tcx^ls) of Father-Son-Holy Spirit is a datum of revelation
confessed by the Creed itself when it declares that the Spirit is to be “wor-
shipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son”. Thus they
might indeed be ready to confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the
Father alone”; but by this they would not mean, “from the Father in
isolation from the Son” (as if the Son were a stranger to the procession of
the Holy Spirit), but rather, “from the Father alone, who is the only Father
of his Only-begotten Son”. The Spirit, who is not a “second Son”, proceeds
in his own unique and absolutely originated way from the Father who, as
Father, is in relation to the Son.
14 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
2. The place of the Son in relation to the procession of the Holy Spirit
The Creed in its original form does not mention any participation of the
Son in the procession of the Spirit from the Father, nor does it indicate the
relationship between the Son and the Spirit. This may be because of the
conflict with various current heresies which subordinated the Spirit to the
Son, and reduced him to the level of a mere creature. However this may be,
the absence of any clear statement on the relation between the Son and the
Holy Spirit faces dogmatic theology with a problem which the West in the
past attempted to solve by means of the filioque. In the Creed’s lack of
clarity on the point lies at least one of the roots of the divergence between
later eastern and western theology of the Trinity. This means that even if
agreement were reached on returning to the original wording of the Creed,
that by itself would not be enough. In the longer term an answer must be
given to the question of the relation between the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The observations which follow are advanced as a suggestion on the way
in which western theology might move forward towards a closer understand-
ing with the East, while still maintaining its concern to link the persons of
the Son and the Spirit:
a) The Son’s participation in the procession of the Spirit from the Father
cannot be understood merely in terms of the temporal mission of the Spirit,
as has sometimes been suggested. In other words, it cannot be restricted to
the “economy” of the history of salvation as if it had no reference to, no
bearing upon and no connexion with the “immanent” Trinity and the relation
within the divine life itself between the three consubstantial persons. The
freedom of God in his own being and as he acts in history must always be
respected; but it is impossible to accept that what is valid for his revelation
of his own being in history is not in some sense also valid for his eternal
being and essence.
b) There is a sense in which it is correct to say that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father alone (ck jxovou tou IlaTpos). This “alone” refers
to the unique procession of the Spirit from the Father, and to his particular
personal being (uTToaTao-is or hyparxis) which he receives from the Father.
But it does not exclude a relationship with the Son as well as with the
Father. On the one hand, the procession (eKiropewis) of the Spirit must be
distinguished from the begetting (yevvT)o-i<?) of the Son; but on the other
hand this procession must be related to the begetting of the Son by the
Father alone. While the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, his
procession is nevertheless connected with the relationship within the Trinity
between the Father and the Son, in virtue of which the Father acts as Father.
The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 15
The begetting of the Son from the Father thus qualifies the procession of
the Spirit as a procession from the Father of the Son.
c) From this fundamental thesis, two things follow. First, it should not be
said that the Spirit proceeds “from the Father and the Son”, for this would
efface the difference in his relationship to the Father and to the Son. Second,
it should be said that the procession of the Spirit from the Father presupposes
the relationship existing within the Trinity between the Father and the Son,
for the Son is eternally in and with the Father, and the Father is never
without the Son. Eastern theology has traditionally emphasized the first of
these two conclusions. The Latin Fathers were already exploring the impli-
cations of the second long before the filioque had finally been clarified and
introduced into the Creed.
d) Along these lines, western trinitarian theology could come to under-
stand the procession of the Holy Spirit in the way suggested by such patristic
formulations as “the Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from the
Son”. This underlines the fact that the Son is indeed not alien to the
procession of the Spirit, nor the Spirit to the begetting of the Son - something
which has also been indicated in eastern theology when it has spoken of the
Spirit as “resting upon” or “shining out through” the Son, and insisted that
the generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit must be distinguished
but not separated. Differences certainly remain still in this area, for eastern
theology is not easily able to agree that there is any priority of the generation
of the Son over the procession of the Spirit, and desires rather to emphasize
the “simultaneity” of the two, and to see the one as “accompanying” the
other. Nonetheless, there does open up here a field for further exploration.
So far as western theology is concerned, the Spirit could then be seen as
receiving his complete existence (hypostasis) from the Father, but as existing
in relation to both the Father and the Son. This would follow the principle
that because the Father is the source of divinity, the Spirit does proceed
from him “alone”. At the same time, however, it would express what that
principle alone and by itself cannot: the relation of the Spirit as a person
within the Trinity to the Son as well as to the Father. The filioque, on this
suggestion, would have valid meaning with reference to the relationship of
the three hypostases within the divine triunity, but not with regard to the
procession of the complete and perfect hypostasis of the Spirit from the
Father.
e) These suggestions raise the further question of whether new or at least
alternative formulations might be found which could express what the fil-
ioque validly sought to convey. Several old-established expressions have
been mentioned in this section of the memorandum, viz:
16 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
- the Spirit proceeds from the Father of the Son;
- the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son;
- the Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son;
- the Spirit proceeds from the Father and rests on the Son;
- the Spirit proceeds from the Father and shines out through the Son.
These and possibly other formulations as well deserve to be given attention
and consideration in future discussion.
V. The relevance of the question
These ancient controversies about what at first sight seems to be a strictly
limited point of doctrine have, we believe, an unexpectedly urgent relevance.
The study of the filioque question can be the point of entry into a wider
exploration of the person and work of the Holy Spirit, of the relation of the
Spirit to Jesus Christ, and indeed of the whole of trinitarian theology. The
feeling that in all the western traditions something has been lacking in our
experience and understanding of the Holy Spirit has grown rapidly in recent
years. This tendency has carried with it a sense that the doctrine of the
Trinity as such has come to appear remote and abstract to many, indeed
very many Christian people. As Lesslie Newbigin writes: “It has been said
that the question of the Trinity is the one theological question that has been
really settled. It would, I think, be nearer the truth to say that the Nicene
formula has been so devoutly hallowed that it is effectively put out of
circulation.” 1 In the western Christian world, while the churches continue
to repeat the trinitarian formula, the trinitarian experience seems distant
from many ordinary Christians. To them the word “God” is more likely to
evoke thoughts of a supreme Monad than of the triune being of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit.
In the course of our discussions, we have realized that the question of the
Trinity is one which is very far from being “settled”. We have found in this
fact not only a source of difficulties which have still to be tackled and
overcome, but also at the same time a source of hope. In many different
quarters it seems as if these basic articles of the Christian faith were coming
to be the centre of new enquiry and fresh reflection. While we have not
been able to agree as to how far the addition of the filioque clause was the
cause of the differences between East and West on this whole subject, we
have come to see that at least it has become a sign or indication of an
underlying difference in theological approach. For the first ten centuries of
the Christian era this difference was contained within a unity of faith and
1 The Open Secret, Grand Rapids, Mich., Eerdmans, 1978, p. 30.
The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 17
sacramental communion; since then it has been one of the primary causes
of the continuing division between Orthodoxy on the one side and the
Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches on the other. Within the
last century, however, this situation has begun to change. First among the
Old Catholics, then amongst Anglicans and others, the position of the
filioque clause in the Creed has come under question. The whole matter of
trinitarian theology has begun to be approached afresh. It has seemed to
many that the balance and fullness of trinitarian doctrine, the reciprocity of
the action of the Son and the Spirit, have been to some extent obscured in
the West. It is not at all easy to trace the links of cause and effect in such
areas. We do not say that the doctrine of the filioque was the cause of these
developments. It may be that they have other origins. But certainly there is
an interaction between one point of doctrine and others, between teaching
and faith, between doctrinal formulations and the growth of Christian life.
In our discussion two points in particular have been suggested as opening
up the wider bearing of the filioque debate. Both have figured especially in
modern discussion of the issue. As they arise out of the concern to see the
doctrine of the Trinity in connexion with the experience and practice of the
Church, we must take them seriously into account.
A. On the one hand, it can be argued that the filioque underlines the fact
that the Holy Spirit is none other than the Spirit of Jesus Christ; that this
understanding of the Spirit is fundamental to the New Testament witness;
and that the filioque is a necessary bulwark against the dangers of christ-
ologically uncontrolled “charismatic enthusiasm”, dangers against which the
churches today need to be on guard.
In no way would we wish to underplay the significance of this concern. At
the same time, the Spirit too must not be “quenched” (I Thess. 5:19). Justice
can be done to both sides of the matter only if in our speaking of the relation
between the Spirit and the Son we do not give the impression of a one-sided
dependence of the Spirit upon Christ, but express the reciprocity between
them mentioned above in Section III B.
B. On the other hand, it can be maintained that the filioque subordinates
the Holy Spirit to Christ; that it tends to “depersonalize” him as if he were
a mere “instrument” or “power”; and that this tendency can also encourage
a subordination of the Spirit to the Church in which the Church itself
becomes hardened in authoritarian institutionalism.
This warning, too, must be taken seriously. It is admittedly an open
question whether and how far connexions of this kind can be historically
demonstrated in the development of the western Church. Nevertheless, this
danger too can only be met and countered on solid theological ground by
18 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
the recognition of the reciprocity and mutual interaction of the Son and
Holy Spirit.
VI. Recommendations
We therefore recommend:
A. That the new possibilities of discussion about the meaning of our faith
in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which are now opening up, and which
we have begun to explore in this memorandum, should be pursued by all
the churches; and that there should be a deeper effort to see how this faith
is to be expressed in the forms of Christian worship, in the structures of the
Church, and in the patterns of Christian life, so that the Holy Trinity may
be seen as the foundation of Christian life and experience. This will require
in particular a new sensitivity to the person and work of the Holy Spirit as
the one who in his fullness both rests upon Jesus Christ and is the gift of
Christ to the Church, the Lord and Giver of life to humankind and all
creation.
B. That the original form of the third article of the Creed, without the
filioque, should everywhere be recognized as the normative one and re-
stored, so that the whole Christian people may be able, in this formula, to
confess their common faith in the Holy Spirit:
And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and Giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father,
who with the Father and the Son together is
worshipped and glorified,
who spoke by the prophets.
C. That the different churches should respond to these suggestions in
ways appropriate to their own historical and theological situations. For some,
this will involve a more living appreciation of formulae whose authority has
never been questioned. For others, it will mean a wholly new appreciation
of the value and significance of this ancient ecumenical confession of faith.
For some in which the Creed is constantly used in public worship, it will
imply liturgical changes which will need to be introduced step by step. In all
these various ways a renewed reception of the Nicene Creed can play a vital
role in the growing together of the separated Christian traditions into the
unity of faith.
PART II
ESSAYS
A.
HISTORICAL ASPECTS
.
THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
ACCORDING TO CERTAIN
LATER GREEK FATHERS* *
MARKOS A. ORPHANOS
Photius
Until the time of Photius, the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit
had been a matter of theological speculation. With Photius, it became a
highly controversial point. Photius, in his discussion of the subject, almost
singles out the idea of the Holy Spirit’s procession through the Son and
deals mainly with the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone.
Photius treats the subject under the following presuppositions: (a) a dis-
tinction must be made between the properties belonging to the divine nature
and those belonging to the hypostases; ( b ) what is common in the Holy
Trinity is common to all three hypostases what is hypostatic is individual
and belongs only to the corresponding hypostasis; (c) the hypostatic proper-
ties are uncommunicable and unconfused; ( d ) the Father is related to the
Son and to the Holy Spirit as their unique cause of being and it is by him
that they are caused.
The faculty of proceeding the Holy Spirit, argues Photius, is a hypostatic
property of the Father and not of the common divine nature.1 Therefore, it
by no means belongs to another TrpoacoTrov of the Holy Trinity. Any par-
ticipation of another Person is contrary to the uncommunicability and the
unconfusedness of the hypostatic properties. Because the Father, as Father,
* This is the second part of a paper entitled “The Procession of the Holy Spirit
According to Certain Greek Fathers”. The first part, dealing with the ideas on the
procession of the Holy Spirit of some ancient Greek Fathers such as Origen, Athan-
asius, the Cappadocians, Epiphanius, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyprus,
Maximus the Confessor, Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite and John of Damascus, has
been omitted because to some extent they are discussed in other papers in this volume.
• Markos A. Orphanos (Greek Orthodox) is lecturer at the Theological Faculty of
the University of Athens, Greece.
1 De S. Spiritus Mystagogia 15, PG 15, PG 102, 293AB.
22 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
begets the Son and proceeds the Holy Spirit, any share of the Son in the
procession of the Holy Spirit would imply that the Son shares the hypostasis
of the Father or stands for it, or that he is a part of the Fathers hypostasis.
Such a notion, however, changes the Holy Triad to diad and introduces the
misbelief of Son-Fatherhood (uiWaTpCa).2
Photius goes on to say that if the Father proceeds the Holy Spirit, not on
the grounds of his hypostasis but on the grounds of his nature, then not only
will the Son participate in the procession of the Holy Spirit but also the Holy
Spirit himself will take part in his own mode of existence.3 The double
procession, continues Photius, makes the Father a simple name, deprived
of meaning and sense; the property characterized by that word no longer
belongs exclusively to him and the two divine hypostases are confused in
one sole person. That is, however, the view of a Sabellius, or rather of some
other half-Sabellian monster.4
The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, says
Photius, results also in the opposite conclusion, namely, the plurality of the
hypostases. If the Son is begotten from the Father, and the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father and the Son, then the Holy Spirit must produce
something else, on account of the equality of the divine Persons. This, of
course, implies that instead of three we must have four hypostases and even
more. Then the triune God is blemished and Christianity is diverted to the
Greek polytheism.5
The Father, emphasizes Photius, is the unique cause (amov) of the mode
of being of the Son and the Holy Spirit who are cutuxt& and he by no means
communicates his own particular property to the other two Persons. Any
idea that the Son together with the Father is the cause of the Holy Spirit’s
mode of existence introduces to the Holy Trinity two causes and two prin-
ciples. Of course, this is not possible and cannot be reconciled with the
divine monarchia of the Father.6
Photius argues that the causal participation of the Son in the procession
of the Holy Spirit introduces two principles and diverts the Orthodox faith
to the gnosticism of Marcion and Manes,7 because, he says, the procession
of the Holy Spirit from the Son must be the same or a different one from
2 Ibid. 16, PG 102, 293 AB.
3 Ibid. 17, PG 102, 325A.
4 Ibid. 9, PG 102, 289A.
5 Ibid. 37, PG 102, 317A.
6 Ibid. 11, PG 102, 292AB .
7 Ibid. 7, PG 102, 316A; Encyclica ad Archiepiscopales Thronos ... 17, PG 102,
729 A.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 23
that of the Father. If it is the same, then the Son communicates the hypostatic
property of the Father. If it is different, then it must be am opposition
between the Father and the Son.8 In this line of thought, Photius maintains
that the filioque introduces two principles of which the one is unoriginated
(avapxos) and the other originated (dpxo|xevr|). This introduces two causes.
With two causes, however, the Trinity becomes formed of four hypostases,
because the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is subject to a kind of division.
This is so because the Holy Spirit derives his existence from two causes,
namely, the Father as a first cause and the Son which is a cause which has
been caused.9
Photius goes on to say that if we are going to accept the notion that the
Son as a cause produces the Holy Spirit, then we must acknowledge that the
Father’s procession of the Holy Spirit is imperfect. This, however, contra-
dicts the perfection of the Father. On the other hand, if to the perfect cause,
the Father, we add another one, the Son, this cause must be imperfect and
inferior in comparison to the first. The insertion of such a rj|xtTop.ov cause
into the internal relations of the Holy Trinity, however, introduces to the
Holy Trinity the Greek mythologies of hippocentaurs and makes the Holy
Trinity a monster.10
According to Photius, the Son cannot be considered as a common cause
of the Holy Spirit’s procession with the Father, because this would imply
that the procession is a common property of the Father and of the Son.
Since all things common to the Father and to the Son are in any case
common to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit must thus proceed from himself. Even
he will be principle of himself and at the same time both cause and caused.
Nevertheless, Photius says, not without irony, even the myths of the Greeks
never fabricated such an idea.* 11
The procession of the Holy Spirit also from the Son, states Photius, leads
to another absurdity, namely, it makes the Father both a direct and an
indirect cause of the Holy Spirit’s procession. The Father is a direct cause
because he begets the Son directly and proceeds the Holy Spirit. He is an
indirect cause because he proceeds the Holy Spirit through the Son. But this
does not happen even in the creation of the compound and changeable
nature.12
8 Ibid. 17, PG 102, 729 A.
9 De S. Spiritus Mystagogia 14, PG 102, 293A; Ibid. 43, PG 102, 321BC.
10 Ibid. 7, PG 102, 288BC; 31, PG 102, 317C-318A; 44, PG 102, 321BC.
11 Ibid. 44, PG 102, 321C.
12 Ibid. 42, PG 102, 341A.
24 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
The participation of the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit, continues
Photius, not without some exaggeration, introduces the impious notion that
the Holy Spirit is the Grandson of the Father, an erroneous conception
which the Fathers from Athanasius onwards have vigorously refuted. Photius
says that it leads also to the heresy of Macedonius putting the Holy Spirit
in a state of inferiority. While the Father and the Son possess the faculty of
the procession of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, despite his equality with
the Father and the Son, is deprived of the possibility to beget the Son and
to come out of himself. 13
The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son is not supported by biblical
evidence. The words of our Lord “for He (i.e. the Holy Spirit) shall receive
of mine and shall show it unto you”, according to Photius, do not mean that
the Holy Spirit receives from the Son, but from the Father. The meaning of
“receiving” is not the same as that of “proceeding”.14 In this particular verse
“receiving” does not mean the causal derivation of the Holy Spirit’s being
from the Son, but simply the proclamation of things to come.15 Even Christs
declaration “he shall receive of mine” implies that the Holy Spirit receives
the accomplishments from the Father, as his cause, and he himself bestows
them on the disciples in order to encourage them for the sufferings to come.16
St Paul’s statement “God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, crying Abba, Father” does not suggest that the Son is the cause of
the Holy Spirit’s existence, but simply that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial
and invariably of the same nature as the Son. The Holy Spirit is called the
“Spirit of the Son” because of his homoousion with the Son. He is also
called “Spirit of the Christ” because he anoints Christ in his human nature.17
Nevertheless, Photius admits that there is only one cause, according to
which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, not, of course, in the mode
of his being but in his temporal mission to the world. It is the result of the
perichoresis of the divine hypostases and their common energies.18
The innovation of th efilioque, Photius goes on to argue, is not supported
by the Tradition of the Church, because neither in the divine words of the
scriptures nor in the human words of the Fathers was it verbally enunciated
that the Spirit proceeds from the Son.19 Photius, of course, was aware that
13 Ep. ad Archiepiscopum et Metropolitam Aquileiensem 9, PG 102, 801D.
14 De S. Spiritus Mystagogia 21-23, PG 102, 300A-301C.
15 Ibid. 29, PG 102, 309C.
16 Ibid. 30, PG 102, 312B.
17 Ibid. 51, PG 102, 329B.
18 Ibid. 23, PG 102, 388AB.
19 Ibid. 5, PG 102, 285A.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 25
according to the partisans of filioque certain Latin Fathers such as Ambrose,
Augustine and Jerome taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.
But he maintains that they were falsified or that they did not speak in
dogmatic terms, or that as human beings they were fallible. In the last case
it would be better to gloss over their error and not to glory in it.20
Even if Ambrose or Augustine in the West taught the procession of the
Holy Spirit from the Son, Photius continues, a great number of Roman
Pontiffs such as Celestine, Leo the Great, Vigilius, Agatho, Gregory the
Great, Hadrian I, Leo III, Benedict III, John VIII and Hadrian III held the
opposite view, namely, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.21 The
same teaching was also pronounced by six of the seven Ecumenical Councils,
clearly implying that the filioque clause has no foundation either in scriptures
or in the Tradition of the Church.22
Photius’ doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit being only from the
Father is rigorous, comprehensive and convincing. It is a pity, however, that
because of his strong polemical manner in discussing this issue, he was
prevented from treating the subject thoroughly. Thus he does not fully
discuss the procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son, even though it
was a traditional teaching of the previous Greek Fathers. On the other hand,
Photius’ interpretation of the relevant biblical passages seems sometimes to
be far-fetched. The same can be argued with regard to Photius’ criticism and
refutation of the arguments of his opponents and partisans of the doctrine
of filioque. Nevertheless, Photius’ doctrine on the procession of the Holy
Spirit has had a tremendous influence upon the Byzantine theology of the
filioque. The authors who oppose the doctrine of filioque turn again and
again to Photius’ treatises and derive arguments and ideas from them.
Gregory the Cypriot
Among the numerous Byzantine theologians who have been involved in
the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit, Gregory (or George) the
Cypriot, Patriarch of Constantinople, deserves a noteworthy place. Gregory,
in his dispute with John Veccos, first an opponent and then a defender of
filioque , was able to clear up some points in regard to the procession of the
Holy Spirit which had been vague.
Gregory follows the Greek patristic tradition, arguing that the Father, on
account of the divine monarchia and the unconfusedness of the hypostatic
20 Ibid. 71-72, PG 102, 352BC - 353A.
21 Ibid. 87-89, PG 102, 376A-380A.
22 Ibid. 5, PG 102, 285AB.
26 Spirit of God , Spirit of Christ
properties, is the sole source and principle of the Son and the Holy Spirit.23
The Father causally sends forth the Holy Spirit on the grounds of the
common essence, because the Father alone is the begetting deity and the
divine source and the only source of the whole deity (eeoyovos Gottis kcxi
irvyyaCa beorqs Kai |xovt] irTiyT] tt|s beoTqTos).24 The Father, Gregory
goes on to say, is the principle and cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit, not
because they derive their existence from the essence of the Father, but
because they owe their mode of being to the hypostasis of the Father,
through which the divine essence is conferred.25
Indeed, because of the identity of essence, the Holy Spirit is also from
the essence of the Son and not from his hypostasis.26 Any derivation of the
Holy Spirit’s mode of existence from the hypostasis of the Son is contrary
to the teaching of the Fathers, who plainly teach that the Father is the
begetting deity (fteoyovos Deo-nris) from whom come forth the Son by way
of generation and the Holy Spirit by way of procession.27
Gregory also repeats the well-known patristic argument that the Father
is the unique cause of being of the Son and the Holy Spirit who are caused
(amotTa). Thus, none of that produced by a cause (amorra) can be a cause
in itself or with the Father produce himself or another amaTov. Gregory
the Cypriot argues with Photius in saying that the procession of the Holy
Spirit from both introduces two principles and two causes in the Holy Trinity.
This even makes the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father imperfect,
an idea which is contrary to the perfection of the Father.28
Gregory was aware that John Veccos rejected that there are two principles
or two causes in the Holy Trinity and that he argued that, although the Son
participates in the causal derivation of the Holy Spirit, there is only one
principle and cause, namely, the Father. Veccos continues that it is due to
the fact that the Sonly cause (uukti ama) leads up to the Fatherly cause
(TrotTpiKT] ama).29 This notion was also common to the Latins who main-
tained that, despite the Sons participation in the causal procession of the
Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes out only from one cause, because the
Father is the primordial source and the Son a joint cause.
23 De processione Spiritus Sancti PG 142, 283A; 299A; Scripta Apologetica PG 142,
235C, 271C.
24 De Processione Spiritus Sancti PG 142, 271 AB.
25 Ibid. PG 142, 270D - 271A.
26 Ibid. 271ABC.
27 Ibid. 272D.
28 Ibid. 281B, 271CD; Scripta Apologetica PG 142, 255C.
29 Scripta Apologetica, PG 142, 235C.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 27
However, Gregory does not accept this argument and insists that the
notion that the Holy Spirit derives his being from the two causes or from
one, because the second is referred to the first, is blasphemous. It is not
founded biblically and is not consistent with the teaching of the Fathers.
Therefore, says Gregory, as far as the Holy Spirit’s causal procession is
concerned, it is neither from nor through the Son, but from the Father
alone.30
Speaking against the assertion of Veccos that the expression “through the
Son’’ implies the filioque (because the preposition “through” bears the same
meaning as the preposition “from”), Gregory maintains that this is a mis-
conception. Indeed, the Holy Spirit proceeds “through” the Son, but this
procession refers to his eternal manifestation (aiSiov ei«J)avaiv) and not to
his essential derivation. When Veccos identifies the expression 81’ Yiou with
the expression €k tou Yiou he commits himself to a great blasphemy against
the Spirit.31
Thus, while from Photius onwards the formula Si’ Yiou was confined to
the mission of the Holy Spirit in time, it is to Gregory’s merit that he applies
it also to the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son. Gregory
explains that many Fathers have taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds through
the Son, but they apply this procession not to the Holy Spirit’s causal mode
of being but to his manifestation. The cause of the hypostatic existence of
the Holy Spirit remains the Father alone.32
This manifestation, which Gregory describes in terms such as €Kc}>avo-i<;,
<t>avepa)CTis, TTpoeiCTis, refers not to the Holy Spirit’s causal mode of being
but to the manner according to which his being exists. The eK(}>avo-i<; is
different from the eKTropewis. The first applies to the manifestation of the
Holy Spirit, the second to his very mode of being.33
In order to distinguish the procession as mode of existence of the Holy
Spirit from his manifestation, Gregory the Cypriot makes an important
distinction between the verbs urrap^iv exeiv and uTrdpxeiv. Thus, the Holy
Spirit owes his cause of existence to the Father alone, but he exists in the
Son and rests in him, shining forth and revealing himself through or from
the Son.34 According to Gregory, this distinction between trcrap^iv exeiv and
vndpxeiv makes plain that the Holy Spirit proceeds in his hypostatic being
30 Ibid. PG 142, 256AB.
31 Ibid. PG 142, 250B.
32 Ibid. PG 142, 250 A.
33 Ibid. PG 263 AB; 265D-266A.
34 De Processione Spiritus Sancti, PG 142, 275C-276A.
28 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
from the Father alone. Yet, in his manifestation in this “economy” the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father and also from the Son. The Holy Spirit,
having from the Father his very being, rests and abides in the Son, from
whom he is shining forth and bestowed.35
The Holy Spirit, explains Gregory, exists eternally in the Son and is
manifested through him, but this existence and manifestation must not be
confused with the Holy Spirit’s eternal causal mode of existence which is
due to the Father alone. In order to illustrate this distinction, Gregory uses
the well-known analogies of the sun, its radiance, and its light, as well as of
the spring, its river and its water.36 Gregory argues that it is recognized that
the very Paraclete shines and manifests itself eternally by the intermediary
of the Son, as light shines from the sun by the intermediary of rays. But that
does not mean that it comes into being through the Son or from the Son.37
This manifestation of the Holy Spirit through the Son, explains Gregory,
refers to the eternal life of the Holy Trinity, but also to the temporal mission
of the Holy Spirit. Yet, a clear distinction must be made between the Holy
Spirit’s emission and his mode of existence. The temporal mission is a
common act of the three divine Persons resulting from their common will
and energy. The mode of the Holy Spirit’s existence, however, depends on
the Father’s hypostasis. Therefore, Veccos and his followers are wrong in
transferring the idea of the Son’s participation in the divine energies to the
internal relations of the Holy Trinity and particularly to the mode of being
of the divine Persons.38
Gregory distinguishes between the principle and cause of the Holy Trinity
which is the Father alone, and the principle cause of the creation which is
the whole Holy Trinity. These two principles must not be confused, because
it would result in a confusion between the Holy Trinity and the creation.
Therefore, continues Gregory, as far as the creation of the world is con-
cerned, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, on the ground of their
common nature, will, power, and energy, create in common as one principle
and one cause the created order. This common energy is a property of the
divine nature and does not confound the hypostatic properties. However,
with regard to the mode of being of the Holy Spirit, the unique principle
and cause is the Father in his hypostatic property. Any participation of the
Son in the mode of being of the Holy Spirit implies that either this procession
35 Scripta Apologetica PG 142, 266CD.
36 Ibid. PG 142, 251 AB; De Processione Spiritus Sancti PG 142, 285C; 287BC.
37 Ibid. 240BC; 285 AB.
38 Ibid. 282D - 283 A.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 29
is imperfect or that the two Persons are confounded into one because the
property of proceeding the Holy Spirit is a hypostatic property of the
Father.39
It is obvious that Gregory considers the question of the Holy Spirit’s
procession from the Father and his manifestation from the Father through
the Son from the point of view of distinction between the divine essence
and the eternal uncreated energies of God. Of course, Photius, following
suit to other Fathers, had accepted this distinction between the essence and
the energies of God, but he had restricted these energies to the gifts of the
Holy Spirit. By opposing the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the
Father to the Spirit’s temporal mission from the Son, he had accepted the
procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son as a consequence of the
Incarnation. Gregory the Cypriot, however, accepts this manifestation (4'k-
<j>avais) of the Holy Spirit through the Son as an eternal act. Gregory
continues that it is his eternal manifestation as an energy, coming out from
the Father and through the Son, that the previous Fathers had in mind when
they said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father 8ia tou Yiou 8l& tou
7Tpo(rex<A)S €k tou irpcoTou or that the Holy Spirit is e£ d|ji(f>oiv or he is iBiov
tctO Yiou.40
Gregory’s contribution to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s procession is
remarkable. In underlining this, John Meyendorff is correct when he writes:
“Instead of simply repeating Photius’ formulas about the ‘eternal procession’
of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone and the ‘emission in time’ by the
Son, Gregory recognized the need to express the permanent relationship
existing between the Son and the Holy Spirit as divine hypostases and he
spoke of an ‘eternal manifestation of the Spirit by the Son’.” 41 Gregory’s
doctrine was taken and developed by his namesake, Gregory of Palamas, to
whom we now turn our attention.
Gregory Palamas
Gregory Palamas discusses the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit
mainly from two points of view: (a) his causal procession from the Father
alone, and ( b ) his energetic procession (kcit’ evepyeuxv) from the Father
through or from the Son.
As far as the Spirit’s causal procession is concerned, Gregory follows the
39 Ibid. 281BD-282AD; 294D-295A; Scripta apologetica PG 142, 242BC.
40 Gregory obviously had in mind Fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius,
Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus, Maximus the Confessor, etc.
41 A Study of Gregory Palamas , London, Faith Press, 1964, p. 13.
30 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Greek patristic tradition, arguing that the hypostasis of the Father is the
unique cause, origin and source of the Son’s and the Holy Spirit’s divinity
and existence. The Father is the cause of the divine unity not only because
his nature is one, but also because the Son and the Holy Spirit coming out
from the Father go back to this one and unique Person.42
According to Gregory Palamas, the procession of the Holy Spirit from
the Father alone is based on John 15:25 and the Tradition of the Church.
Of course, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, Palamas admits, does not
say plainly that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, as it does
not state that the Son is begotten from the Father alone. Nevertheless, it is
self-evident because the Father is the only cause of being of the two other
Persons of the Trinity who are caused (amaTtx).43 The procession (ckito-
pewis), explains Palamas, is a property of the hypostasis of the Father and
not of the divine essence. If it is accepted as a common property of the
nature, the Holy Spirit should then also proceed from himself. In this case,
however, the Holy Trinity becomes four Persons. On the other hand, if this
procession (eKiropewis) is a common property of the Father and the Son,
and the Holy Spirit is deprived of it, then the Holy Spirit is alienated from
the divine nature.44
Gregory goes on to say that because the procession of the Holy Spirit is
a hypostatic act of the Father, the double procession introduces two causes
and origins in the Holy Trinity, since the Father and the Son are two
distinctive hypostases.45 The threat of introducing to the Holy Trinity two
origins is in no way ruled out by the assertion that the Father and the Son
constitute a sole origin of the Holy Spirit. This is absolutely contrary to the
fteoyovov which is an incommunicable hypostatic property of the Father.46
On the other hand, if the Deoyovov were to be attributed to the Son, it
would lead to another misconception, namely that the Son is of the same
hypostasis as the Father.47 Therefore, Gregory points out, the procession of
the Holy Spirit from the Father alone safeguards the monarchia and rules
out the danger of introducing into the Holy Trinity two principles and two
causes.48 He says that it is necessary to distinguish between the origin of the
42 Aoyos dnroSeiKTiKOS 1.8, Bobrinskoy, SiryypdfAjAaTa rptiyopiav IIa\ap,d 1, p. 133;
Ibid. 1-23, p. 52, 49; 1.2, p. 31, 4-17.
43 Ibid. 1.6, p. 33, 28-34, 5; 1.15, p. 43, 23-26.
44 £moToX.T| Trpds ’AkCvSvvov 4.7, Meyendorff, 1, p. 209, 15, 19.
45 Ibid. 1.7, p. 34, 15-19.
46 Aoyoq diroSeiKTiKos 1.15, Bobrinskoy, 1, pp. 43, 16-44, 24.
47 Ibid. 1.22, p. 81, 28-30.
48 Ibid. 1.49, p. 70, 16-19.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 31
Holy Trinity, which is the Father alone, and the origin of the creation, which
is the Triune God.49 According to this distinction, the Father alone is the
origin and the root of the Holy Trinity. The Father sends out the Son by
way of generation and the Holy Spirit by way of procession. The Father as
the unique principle (apxT)) is the cause of the unity of the Holy Trinity and
its hypostatic differentiation.50 The three divine Prosopa as a trihypostatic
principle, argues Palamas, create together because they possess one sole
energy and will.51 Their activity from the Father through the Son is realized
in the Holy Spirit.52 On the basis of the distinction between the Fatherly
principle (TraTpiKT) apxT)) and the triadic principle (tpicx8ikt] apxT]), the
statement of Gregory of Nazianzus that the Son is iq €k Tfjs dpxiis apxfi
does not mean that the Son is the origin of the Holy Spirit but the origin of
the creation, which comes into being by the common act of the three divine
hypostases.53 Any confusion of these two principles results in the confusion
between the divinity and the creation, for either the creatures have the same
mode of being as the Prosopa of the Holy Trinity, or the divine hypostases
- and particularly the Holy Spirit - come into being like the created order,
namely, by the will and energy of God.54
The idea of the double procession of the Holy Spirit, Gregory maintains,
leads to the same misconception, because the statement tanquam ab uno
principio refers not to “theology” but the the divine “economy”, namely,
the participation of the Son in the creation of the world.55 On the contrary,
the clear distinction between the Fatherly principle (ttchtpikt] apxTi) and the
triadic principle (tpux8ikt} apXTi) presupposes the participation of the Son
in the act of the creation and excludes any notion of the Son’s participation
in the causal mode of being of the Holy Spirit.56
Over and over again Gregory refers to the hypostatic procession of the
Holy Spirit and his manifestation. The mode of being and the manifestation
of the Holy Spirit, Gregory argues, are two aspects of the mystery of the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit derives his existence from the Father, yet he
exists eternally in the Son and rests in him.57 The Son participates in the
49 ’EttuttoXt) Trpos ’AkCvSvvov 1.5, Meyendorff, p. 207, 24-25.
50 Ao'yos aTToSeiKTLKoq 1.15, Bobrinskoy, pp. 43, 16-44, 24.
51 riepl evdxreojs Ken 8iaKpuT€(o<; 21, Mantzarides , 2, p. 84, 13-15.
52 ’EmcrroX-n Trpoq \Aklv8vvov 1.5, p. 207, 24—25.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid. 1.14, pp. 24-25.
55 Ao^os d-TToSeiKTiKOS 1.15, p. 44, 1-2.
56 ’EttuttoXti Trpds BapXaap, 1.21, Meyendorff, 1, p. 236, 15-237, 3.
57 A6‘yo«; dnroSeiKTiKOs 2.73, p. 144, 14-21.
32 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
manifestation (eK^avais) of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Gregory continues,
the Spirit pours itself out from the Father through the Son and, if you like,
from the Son.58 Comparing the causal procession of the Holy Spirit with his
energetic (Kerr’ evepyeiav) procession, he maintains that the Holy Spirit
belongs to Christ by essence and by energy, because Christ is God; never-
theless, according to essence and hypostasis it belongs but not proceeds,59
whereas, according to energy, it belongs and proceeds. Because of the
perichoresis and the consubstantiality of the hypostases, the Son and the
Holy Spirit are of the other (tou aWov) but not from the other (e£ aUou).
On account of the difference between the causal and the manifesting
(€Kcj)avTopLKT]) procession of the Holy Spirit, Palamas explains, when certain
Fathers assert that the Holy Spirit comes forth “from both” or “through the
Son” or “from the Son”, they are referring to the common energy of these
divine hypostases and not to the mode of existence of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, Palamas suggests, when you understand that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the two, because it comes essentially from the Father through
the Son, you should understand this teaching in the following sense: it is the
powers and essential energies of God which pour out and not the divine
hypostasis of the Spirit.60
The hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, Gregory continues, does not come out
from the Son, nor is it shared (pe^eKTT]), i.e. it is not communicated to any
creature. Only the divine grace and energy are participated in (puefteKTcu).61
On the other hand, when the Fathers speak about the procession of the
Holy Spirit through or from the Son, they connect this procession with the
divine essence and not with the hypostasis of the Son. Everything, however,
which comes out commonly from the divine essence is energy and not
hypostasis.62
Gregory Palamas goes on to say that because the divine essence as well
as the hypostases are not shared (apifleKToi) and only the divine energies
can be communicated (pt'OeKTcu), on Pentecost and in other cases where
the Holy Spirit was bestowed by Christ, it was not the hypostasis of the Holy
Spirit but his charismata that were transmitted. The granting of the divine
energies is a common act of the Holy Trinity which starts from the Father,
comes through the Son and is realized in the Holy Spirit.63
58 Ibid. 1.29, p. 54, 23-24.
59 Ibid. 2.29, p. 105, 17-21.
60 Ibid. 2.20, p. 96, 23-28.
61 Ibid. 2.48, p. 122, 14-17.
62 Ibid. 2.69, pp. 140, 19-141, 3.
63 flepl evwCTews kcxi SuxKpCcreoos 21, Mantzarides, p. 84, 10-15.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 33
On account of this distinction between the divine essence and the divine
uncreated energies, the Holy Scriptures referring to the Holy Spirit speak
on the one hand of “the Spirit” with the definite article and on the other
hand of “Spirit” without the article. In the first case the essential derivation
is implied while in the second the gifts of the Holy Spirit, i.e. his energies.
Therefore, when our Lord infused the disciples with the Holy Spirit he did
not say “receive ye the Holy Spirit” (as is commonly translated in English)
but simply “receive Holy Spirit”, that is to say 6paxt> ti tou 7TV€U|i.crro<;, his
energy, and not his essence or hypostasis.64
Thus the participation of the Son can be accepted only in the sense of the
energetic (kcit’ evepyeiav) procession of the Holy Spirit and by no means
can it be transferred by induction to his mode of existence. The energies of
the Holy Spirit are a result of the common free will and activity of the Holy
Trinity. However, the hyparxis of the Holy Spirit is an act of the hypostasis
of the Father. Therefore, the Son participates in the mission and the energies
of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit owes his existence to the Father
alone.65
According to Palamas, the energetic (Korr’ evepyeiav) procession of the
Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son is eternal and it becomes
temporal when the Father and the Son will it. The energy as uncreated
pre-exists its realization and manifestation, therefore, his being a Spirit is
precontemplated on the Son emanating from him only according to time
(em Tcru Yiou 'TrpofteajpeiTGa to eivai aurou IIv€i3p.a too aurou eivai, ei
KaL p.T| Kcrra xpb^ov).66
In order to illustrate the eternal existence of the common energies in the
Holy Trinity and their temporal manifestation, Palamas uses for the first
time in the Greek patristic tradition the analogy of “love” (epax;) which was
introduced in the West by Augustine67 and used by others. Thus, according
to Palamas, the Spirit of the Word from on high is like a mysterious love of
the Father towards the Word mysteriously begotten; it is the same love as
that possessed by the Word and the well beloved Son of the Father towards
him who begat him; this he does in so far as he comes from the Father
conjointly with this love and this love rests, naturally, on him.68 Gregory,
referring to the Incarnate Logos, argues that the Holy Spirit is indeed the
64 A670S aTToSeucTiKos 2.6, p. 83, 3-6.
65 Ibid. 2.26, p. 102, 10-15.
“Ibid. 2.14, p. 92, 1-3.
67 De Trinitate IX.X.15, PL 42, 968-969.
68 Capita Physica Theologica 36, PG 150, 1145A.
34 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Spirit of the Son as well, but He receives this from the Father, because of
his attribute as the Spirit of Truth, Wisdom and the Word; since Truth and
Wisdom are words appropriate to the Genitor.69
Gregory Palamas is obviously referring, on the one hand, to the eternal
relations within the Holy Trinity and particularly to the mutual use (xpf|ai<;)
of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, and on the other hand, to
the Holy Spirit’s temporal mission. However, this “love” which “comes
from the Father conjointly with this love” is by no means the hypostasis of
the Holy Spirit coming into existence from the Father and the Son, because
in his use (xpfjcriv) the Son already possesses the Holy Spirit and this “love”
abides in him. But the Son possesses the Holy Spirit because he comes out
from the Father in his existence.70
If we take into account that, according to Palamas, every name applied
to God refers to his energy and not to his essence or hypostasis, this
characterization of the Holy Spirit as “love”, used by the Father and the
Son, applies not to the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit but to the common
energy which is the love of the Triune God. It exists eternally in God and
is manifested in time coming out from the Father through the Son and the
Holy Spirit.71
That Gregory Palamas by this image of love, strange to the eastern
tradition, is referring to the energetic procession (koit’ evepyeiav) of the
Holy Spirit and not to his causal existence is clear from his explanation that
the Holy Spirit is pre-eternal joy of both the Father and the Son. As common
to both as concerns its use (xpfjo-is), hence it is sent by both only to those
who are worthy, but being only of the Father, as far as its existence is
concerned. Therefore, the Holy Spirit proceeds alone from the Father as
concerns its existence.72 By this clear distinction between the kccO’ inrap^Lv
procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone and his kgit’ evepyeiav
from the Father through the Son or from the Father and the Son, Palamas
excludes the idea of filioque. The double procession of the Holy Spirit, to
Palamas’ judgment, introduces confusion or relativism of the hypostases and
their hypostatic properties. In the case in which the Father and the Son, as
one principle, proceed the Holy Spirit, then they are confused into a cjnxjLKTi
69 Ibid.
70 A6"yo<; dt-TToSeiKTiKos 2.26, p. 102, 12-15.
71 Ilepl €va>crea>s Kal SiaKptcreax; 21, p. 84, 10-15.
72 Capita Physica Theologica 36, PG 150, 1145A.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 35
dSuxKpima and the Holy Spirit himself as the unity of the two hypostases
is not clearly distinguished as a hypostasis.73
On the other hand, the distinction between the kc^O’ \rcrap£iv and the Korr’
evepyeiav procession of the Holy Spirit safeguards man’s participation in the
uncreated grace, i.e. the common energies of the Triune God, and at the
same time excludes the danger of polytheism.74
Mark of Ephesus
Mark Eugenicus, Metropolitan of Ephesus, arguing against the Latins and
the pro-unionists at the Council of Florence and later against those who had
subscribed to its Decree or accepted its pronouncement that the Holy Spirit
has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father and the Son sim-
ultaneously and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and one
spiration,75 insists that the Holy Spirit derives his hypostatic hyparxis from
the Father alone.76
I am not going to discuss Mark’s arguments in defence of the Holy Spirit’s
procession from the Father alone or the implications of the twofold proces-
sion of the Holy Spirit, but I should like to underline briefly his criticism of
the presupposition and theological foundations of filioque as they were
presented by his contemporaries.
The first point which draws Mark’s criticism is the Latin theory that the
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but as from one principle
and cause and by one spiration.77 Mark argues that this is unacceptable,
because the twofold procession of the Holy Spirit as from one principle
makes the Father and the Son two principles or confuses their Persons.78
Since the Father is the unique “cause” and the Son “caused”, the Son
can never be cause (amov) not only because this contradicts the uniqueness
of the Father’s causality79 but also because it makes the Son cause and at
the same time caused (amo-amcn-ov) which is absurd.80 On the other hand,
the “cause” and the “caused” cannot be put together and make one principle
73 A Radovic: The Mystery of the Holy Trinity According to St. Gregory Palamas (in
Greek), Thessaloniki, 1973, p. 150.
74 Theophanes 20-21, Mantzarides, 2, pp. 245-248.
75 Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta (Jedin), Freiburg im Bresgau, 1962, p. 502,
39-45.
76 Capita Syllogistica 31 (Petit) PO 15, p. 401; Confessio Fidei (Petit), PO 15, p. 435.
77 Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta , p. 502, 39-45.
78 Capita Syllogistica 24, p. 393.
79 Ibid. 18, p. 388.
80 Ibid. 34, pp. 402-3.
36 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
and cause, just as the Father cannot be Father and Son or the Son Son and
Father.81 The notions of “cause” and “caused” imply logical opposition, but
according to the Latin tradition the opposition of relations produces distinc-
tion and differentiation of the Persons and not unity of them.82
Mark also objects to the Latins’ argument that just as Father, Son and
Holy Spirit in creating the world are not three principles but one, without
losing their hypostatic individualities, in the same way Father and Son
proceeding in common the Holy Spirit are not two principles but one without
confusion or mixture.83 Following Gregory the Cypriot84 and Gregory Pala-
mas,85 Mark explains that there is a difference between the triadic principle
(TpiaSiKT) apxTi) which is the principle and cause of the creation and the
Fatherly one (TraTpiKT) apxTi) which is the principle of the divinity.86 As far
as the creation of the world is concerned, the three divine Persons, on the
ground of their common energy, power and will, create jointly as one
principle.87 But it is not so with the existential procession of the Holy Spirit,
which is a hypostatic faculty of the Father alone.88 The induction of the
mode of being of the Holy Spirit from the mode of being of the created
order would cast the Holy Spirit down to the rank of the creation.89
On the ground of the distinction between these two principles the state-
ment of Gregory of Nazianzus that the Son is rj €k tt)s apx'rjs “PX'H90 does
not mean that the Son is principle of the Holy Spirit but principle of the
creation, because, conjointly with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he created
it.91 It is noteworthy, Mark says, that Gregory, referring to the existential
relation of the divine Prosopa, calls them “”Avapxov Kai apxT] *cd to |JL€t&
rps apxTis”.92 Thus he makes clear that the Holy Spirit comes forth not from
the dpxT], i.e. the Son, but with the apxfj from the Unoriginated apxfj i.e.
the Father.93 The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son
81 Ibid. 18, p. 388.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid. 41, p. 408; 46, p. 411.
84 De Processione Spiritus Sancti, PG 142, 281BD-282AD; Scripta Apologetica PG
142, 242BC.
85 ’EmcrToX/T) irpos ’Akiv8vvov 1.5, Meyendorff, p. 207, 14-30.
86 Capita Syllogistica, 32, p. 401.
87 Ibid. 41, p. 408.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid. 1, p. 370.
90 Oratio 45, 9, PG 36, 633C.
91 Capita Syllogistica 1, p. 371.
92 Oratio 42, 15, PG 36, 476A.
93 Capita Syllogistica 1, p. 372.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 37
as from one joint principle and cause, Mark maintains, is impossible, because
the faculty of being principle and cause is a hypostatic or personal property.94
As such, however, it distinguishes the Persons and does not unite them.95
As long as the Son is considered as a principle of the Holy Spirit’s procession,
therefore, diarchy can in no way be excluded from the Holy Trinity, since
everything which naturally owes its being to the two cannot be considered
as coming from one.96 On the other hand, the diarchy and the danger of
introducing two causes cannot be avoided by considering the Son as the
ajxeaov or TToppu) cause and the Father as the ep.p-eo'ov or TroppcoTepco or
8ia rov TTpoo-exous.97 These notions indicate opposed relations which result
in the distinction of those principles and not in their identity. Therefore,
Mark concludes, ovk apa ev amov 6 ncmjp eorai Kai 6 Yios avTiK€L|xeva
aiTia ovra.98
Also the twofold procession of the Holy Spirit as from one principle is
not possible even if he proceeds “from” the Father “through” the Son.
Everything which derives its existence from someone through some other
owes its existence to two causes. Every human being coming into existence
“from a man” “through a woman” has two causes and two principles99 just
as Jacob born from Abraham through Isaac has two causes of his being in
spite of the fact that the one is eyyvov and the other eyyuTepov.100 Thus,
concludes Mark, as long as the Son is a principle of the Holy Spirit’s
procession in no way can diarchy in the Holy Trinity be avoided.101
The second point of Mark’s criticism concerns the meaning of the prep-
ositions “from” (ck) and “through” (8ia) in respect to the procession of the
Holy Spirit. At the Council of Florence they were accepted as synonymous102
and on this ground the notion that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father
through the Son” was considered to be identical to the notion that he
proceeds “from the Father and from the Son”. Thus the Latins have argued
that the Latinizers have accepted that the procession of the Holy Spirit
“through” the Son implies that the Son as well as the Father is the cause or
94 Ibid. 11, p. 388.
95 Confessio Fidei , 2, p. 439.
96 Capita Syllogistica 1, p. 370.
97 Ibid. p. 370; Ibid. 10, p. 382; Ibid. 42, p. 408.
98 Ibid. 19, p. 389.
99 Ibid. 42, p. 408.
100 Ibid. 39, p. 407.
101 Ibid. 40, pp. 407-8.
102 Relatio de rebus a se gestis 5, (Petit) PO 15, p. 447.
38 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
principle of the Holy Spirit.103 Therefore, the filioque clause was not an
innovation but the common faith of East and West, expressed only in two
slightly different formulas, lawfully added to the Creed for good and suf-
ficient reasons.104
In refuting this idea, Mark argues with the previous Greek Fathers that
the prepositions “from” and “through” bear the same meaning and imply
causality only when they refer to the creation or to the energetic manifes-
tation of the Holy Spirit and never to his mode of being.105 Indeed, Mark
admits, certain Greek Fathers, in referring to the procession of the Holy
Spirit, have said that he “proceeds from the Father through the Son”.
However, they meant not the mode of being of the Holy Spirit but his
consubstantiality with the Father and the Son. Maximus the Confessor
underlines this by stating that the Holy Spirit proceeds substantially from
the Father through the ineffably generated Son.106
On the other hand, by the formula “through the Son” certain Fathers
have suggested not the Holy Spirit’s origin but his procession which is
simultaneous with the begetting of the Son from the Father. Therefore,
“through” here means not “from” but “with” or “together” as Gregory of
Nyssa makes clear.107
That these prepositions bear a quite different meaning, Mark goes on, is
proved by the fact that the Greek Fathers, referring to the procession of the
Holy Spirit, never say that he proceeds “from” the Son or “through” the
Father but “from” the Father “through” the Son. This “through the Son”
procession of the Holy Spirit is applied by the Fathers to the Holy Spirit’s
energetic manifestation.108 Therefore, they do not use it alone but always in
connection with the Father’s participation in it and in the formula “from the
Father through the Son”.109 Thus, Mark concludes, the phrase “from the
Son” - with reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit - implies not
principle or cause but channel through or with which something is mani-
fested, conveyed, known or given.110
The third point to which Mark comes over and over again is the Latins’
view that the existing “order” in the enumeration of the divine Prosopa of
103 Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, pp. 501, 35-502, 5.
104 Ibid.
105 Confessio Fidei 7, pp. 436-437.
106 Capita Syllogistica 10, p. 381; Confessio Fidei 1, p. 436.
107 Capita Syllogistica, 38, pp. 406-7.
108 Ibid. 20-21, pp. 389-391.
109 Confessio Fidei 1, p. 438.
110 Ibid. 437.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 39
the Holy Trinity corresponds to their order of origin and nature. Thus the
Holy Spirit being third in order after the Father and the Son derives his
being from both.111 In Mark’s opinion such an ontological order does not
exist in the Holy Trinity. Not because the Holy Trinity is otTotKTos but
because it is above any kind of order.112 Therefore the divine Prosopa, as
Gregory of Nazianzus has already said, are pronumerated and connumerated
and subnumerated.113 When the Latins recall Basil’s statement: “Even if the
Holy Spirit is third in dignity and order, why need he be third also in
nature?” 114 to prove their case, they misinterpret it. Basil does not say that
there is an order of nature in the Holy Trinity, but arguing in supposition
he allows for the sake of argument that if the Holy Spirit is third in order
and dignity, even so he is not third in nature.115
If in the formula of baptism,116 Mark goes on, the Father comes first, the
Son second and the Holy Spirit third, it is because things which are to be
enumerated have to be mentioned one after another. The Father, possessing
as cause a logical priority towards the Son, comes first; the Son as caused
second and the Holy Spirit perforce comes third. He comes third not only
because he is cru|X7r\T|pamK6v of the Holy Trinity, but because if he were
to come second it would imply that he was also a Son of the Father.117
In Mark’s judgment, even if w-e accept that there is a certain “order” in
the Trinity on account of the triune deity, it by no means leads to filioque.
This is made clear by Basil118 who states that the Spirit proceeds from the
Father alone and depends on the Son, that is to say he is placed in order
after him, not because he proceeds from him but because he is apprehended
with him.119 “Dependent on” and “be caused of” are two quite different
things. The first implies not more than “ordered with” while the second
points to the cause and principle of being.120 Thus, Mark concludes, while
the “order” of confessing or pronouncing the names of the divine Prosopa
and their enumeration does not point to the double procession of the Holy
Spirit, the Latin notion of ontological and natural order introduces to the
111 Capita Syllogistica 6, pp. 376-8.
112 Ibid. p. 377.
113 Oratio 34, 15, PG 36, 253D-256A.
n* Adversus Eunomium 3.1, Gamier 1, 272BC.
115 Mansi 31A, 869CD.
1.6 Math. 28, 19.
1.7 Capita Syllogistica 6, pp. 376-7.
1.8 Ps Basil , Ep. 38,4, Courtonne, 1, pp. 84-5.
119 Capita Syllogistica 6, p. 377.
120 Ibid.
40 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Trinity subnumerations (vmxpi/ftp/ricreis) and degradations (u7ro(3a$p,icr€is)
which could easily lead to the subordination of the hypostases.121
The fourth point of Mark’s criticism refers to the theory of Thomas
Aquinas according to which only opposed relations of origin distinguished
the divine Prosopa. These opposite relations exist between Father and Son
as well as between Father and Holy Spirit because paternity and procession
produce opposite relations and consequently distinctions. But as the Holy
Spirit cannot be really distinct of the Father unless he proceeds from the
Father, in the same way he cannot be really distinct from the Son unless he
proceeds from the Son. On this ground the idea of the Son as an origin for
the procession of the Holy Spirit - indeed connected to the first origin, the
Father - is necessary and the filioque clause well founded.122
Opposing this theory, Mark remarks, with the Fathers previous to him,
that the distinction of the hypostases is grounded not in their opposite
relations and not in their different origins, but only in their different modes
of being from the one principle and origin, i.e. the Father.123 The mode of
being of the Son by way of generation and that of the Holy Spirit by way of
procession, as perfect acts of the Father’s hypostatic faculty, clearly distin-
guish them from their own origin and cause, i.e. the Father, as well as from
among themselves. For this reason, Mark continues, although the Holy
Spirit does not proceed from the Son, the two are really distinct both by
their constitution and by their mode of being.124
In opposition to the Thomistic theory of different origin and opposite
relations, Mark underlines the distinction of hypostases kcxt& tt|v avTicpao-iv,
which is the result of their different mode of being and their individual
properties. Thus between “unbegotten”, “begotten” and “proceeding” or
the “cause” and those “caused” there is a distinction according to the
avTLcpaais but not according to their opposite relations and their different
origins. This distinction kcxt& rqv avTicpaatv on the one hand safeguards the
hypostatic differentiation of the divine Prosopa, and on the other is in
accordance with the teaching of the eastern Fathers, who consider the Father
as the unique principle of the Holy Spirit and reject any participation of the
Son in the Spirit’s mode of being.125
Mark does not leave unnoticed the existing difference between the hy-
121 Ibid. 43, p. 409.
122 Ibid. 13, p. 384. For Thomas Aquinas’ arguments cf. Summa Theologica la, 28,
1-4.
123 Capita Syllogistica 13, p. 384.
124 Ibid. 25-26, pp. 396-7.
125 Ibid. 13, pp. 384-5.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 41
postatic procession of the Holy Spirit and his mission or energetic manifes-
tation and criticizes the partisans of filioque that their failure to pay the
required attention to it leads them to confusion of the existential (KaH’
tbrap^iv) and the energetic (kc^t’ evepyeiav) procession of the Holy Spirit.126
Following the other Greek Fathers, Mark says that the mission of the
Holy Spirit is a common act of the three divine Prosopa and takes place in
time and for a particular purpose.127 This mission does not belong to the
eternal hypostatic properties, but to the ad extra activities of the Holy
Trinity. Thus John 16:7 is applied not to the hypostatic procession of the
Holy Spirit but to his grace, power and manifestation, i.e. his energetic
procession.128
Christ, Mark goes on to say, by his infusion of the Holy Spirit on his
disciples after the resurrection, gave to them neither the essence nor the
hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, but his energy.129 Also on the day of Pentecost
neither the essence nor the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit was manifested and
bestowed but his energy, which coming from the Father through the Son in
the Holy Spirit is common or rather identical to the three divine Prosopa.130
Therefore, the distinction between ousia and energies in God is of cardinal
importance for the proper answer to the question of the procession of the
Holy Spirit.
Mark Eugenicus summarizes successfully the Greek patristic tradition on
the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit, not simply by repeating the
arguments of previous Fathers but by advancing their reasoning and putting
the problem in the perspective of his own time. Indeed, his explanation
bears a polemical nuance. This is because he has advanced his arguments in
a difficult situation, fighting against the Latins and the Greek pro-unionists,
acting as the main defender and representative of the Greek patristic trad-
itional line. For this reason he sometimes goes to extremes and discredits
his opponents’ arguments. He reacts to the Decree of Florence by his
insistence upon the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone,
basing his arguments upon the teaching of ancient Fathers. Tracing the
implications of filioque he follows to a large extent the line of Photius and
in refuting the foundations of filioque and the arguments of his opponents
126 Ibid. 4, p. 373.
127 Ibid.
128 Ibid. p. 375.
129 Ibid. 8, pp. 375-6.
130 Ibid. 4, pp. 375-6.
42 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
in favour of it, he mainly follows the line of reasoning used by Gregory
Palamas.131
Mark’s discussion on the distinction between ousia and energies and its
implications for the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit is rather
limited, because he was prevented by the Emperor from discussing this topic
at the Council of Florence. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that he does treat
the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit from this angle and the
existing difference between the divine essence and the divine uncreated
energies determines his whole discussion on the subject of the Holy Spirit’s
procession.
Mark himself was considered by theologians belonging to the traditional
patristic school as the “criterion” of the sound doctrine132 and the “bright
and great and godly wise herald of truth”.133 It is not surprising, therefore,
that his teaching on the procession of the Holy Spirit has had a tremendous
influence among his contemporaries as well as upon later Orthodox theo-
logians until the present day.
Conclusion
If we are to draw some conclusions, we may summarize the account given
by saying that the idea according to which the Holy Spirit derives his being
equally and coordinally from the Father and the Son is foreign to Greek
patristic theology. This is neither accidental nor a mere obstinate attitude of
the Greek Fathers towards the Latin tradition, but the natural outcome of
their theological insight and their approach to the mystery of the triune
God-head.
The earlier Greek Fathers - particularly after the Cappadocians clearly
distinguished between ousia and hypostasis , common or natural, and indi-
vidual or hypostatic properties, which are not interchangeable or confounded
- steadfastly argued that the Father is the principle, cause and fountain-head
of deity. Thus, the Father, deriving his being from himself, brings forth from
his essence, but on the capacity of his hypostatic property, the Son by way
of generation, and the Holy Spirit by way of procession. He confers to them
his whole essence but he does not communicate to them his hypostatic
131 See on this topic A. Schmemann: ‘O tryios MapKCK 6 Ev7€viko<;, 34 (1951), pp. 34-
43; 230-241.
132 Marci Ephesii, Morientis Oratio ad Amicos, Petit, PO 15, p. 489.
133 Cf. C. Tsirpanlis, Mark Eugenicus and the Council of Florence, Thessaloniki 1974,
p. 107.
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 43
property of begetting and proceeding. Therefore, the Father remains the
unique “cause” of being of the Son and of the Holy Spirit who are “caused”.
On this basis the later Greek Fathers discussed and developed further the
issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit and on this ground they came up
against the different approach on the subject by their Latin counterparts.
The Latin doctrine of a twofold procession of the Holy Spirit from the
Father and the Son was rejected by the Greeks who felt that such a notion
introduces two principles and two causes to the Holy Trinity. This, of course,
could not be reconciled with the idea of the divine monarchia of the Father,
which was a keystone of faith.
The Latins’ explanation that the Holy Spirit proceeds in a primordial
sense from the Father who endowed the Son with the capacity to produce
the Holy Spirit is such a way that the Son is not the “cause” but a “joint-
cause”, did not satisfy the Greek Fathers. In disagreement with the pro-
unionists, they thought that this idea leads to diarchy or to confusion of the
hypostases. If the Father and the Son, they objected, proceed the Holy
Spirit in their distinct hypostatic faculties then two causes and two principles
are introduced into the Holy Trinity. If this occurs as from one Person then
the confusion of the hypostases is inevitable. If from their common essence
then the Holy Spirit on account of his common essence must participate in
his own mode of being.
The double procession of the Holy Spirit as from one cause, the Greek
Fathers maintained, is impossible not only because the Father proceeds the
Holy Spirit as a perfect “cause” and producer, but also because the capacity
of being “cause” is a hypostatic and individual property, and as such un-
communicable. The hypostatic properties distinguish and by no means unite
the Prosopa. On the other hand, the “cause” and that which is “caused”
cannot be a joint cause, because their difference implies distinction and not
unity.
The Greek Fathers were in agreement with the Latins who maintained
that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit made jointly the created order
acting as one cause and principle - and not three - without confusion of
their own hypostases. They were in disagreement, however, with the Latins’
inference that this can also be applied to the mode of being of the Holy
Spirit. The conviction of the Greek Fathers was that the TpiaSiKT] apX'H as
the common cause of the creation must not be confused with the TraTpiKT)
apxT) which remains the unique cause of being of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.
Any induction of the mode of being of the Holy Spirit from the mode of
44 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
being of the creation was felt by the Greek Fathers to confuse creation and
divinity.
The later Greek Fathers were not prepared to accept the idea of the
double procession of the Holy Spirit as a necessary consequence of his
opposed relations of origin towards the Father and the Son. To their un-
derstanding it is not the opposite relations of origin that are the foundation
and cause of the hypostatic existence and differentiation of the divine hy-
postases, but the different mode of being of the Son by way of generation
and of the Holy Spirit by way of procession from their unoriginated unique
principle and cause, i.e. the Father.
The Greek Fathers were also cautious and rejected the Latins’ conclusion
that the “order” of manifestation and names of the divine Prosopa implies
their existential and natural order as well. For the Greeks there is no
ontological order whatsoever in the Holy Trinity. If in the formula of baptism
in the doxology and the confession of the Holy Trinity the Father comes
first, the Son second and the Holy Spirit third it is so because the Father,
as “cause”, possesses a logical priority over the Son and the Holy Spirit who
are “caused”. The Son naturally comes second and the Holy Spirit perforce
third, because if he came after the Father then he must be Son.
The filioque controversy gave to the later Greek Fathers the opportunity
to thoroughly study and develop the idea of difference between ousia and
energies in the Triune God - a topic which rests in the insight of the earlier
Greek Fathers - and, in the light of this distinction, to consider the question
of the procession of the Holy Spirit. This outlook enabled them to make a
clear distinction between the Holy Spirit’s essential derivation and his en-
ergetic manifestation. On this ground they argued that the KafF \map£iv
procession of the Holy Spirit is quite different from his kcxt’ evepyeiav
procession. In his KafF umxp^iv procession the Holy Spirit proceeds from
the Father alone, yet in his KaT’ evepyeiav or kcxt’ eKcpavcxiv he comes out
from the Father through the Son and even from the Father and from the
Son, because all divine energies are realized from the Father through the
Son in the Holy Spirit. Thus the prepositions “from” and “through”, ac-
cording to the Greek Fathers, bear the same meaning and they can be
interchanged only when referring to the Holy Spirit’s energetic manifesta-
tion. In respect to his essential derivation the Holy Spirit proceeds “from”
the Father and by no means “from” or “through” the Son.
By this distinction between essence and energies the Greek Fathers were
able not only to avoid any confusion between the mode of being of the Holy
Spirit and his energetic manifestation or his activities, but also to point out
that this kcxt’ evepyeiav procession of the Holy Spirit “through” the Son is
Procession of the Holy Spirit according to later Greek Fathers 45
eternal and as such must not be restricted or confused with his temporal
mission.
It is true that, in dealing with the procession of the Holy Spirit, the Greek
Fathers, particularly the ancient ones, are not always explicit or clear-cut in
their account. We have to remember, though, that the issue became a
theological problem for the Greek Fathers only in the ninth century. There-
fore, early authorities such as Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius, Didymus of
Alexandria, Cyril of Alexandria, etc., in a time when the issue of the
procession of the Holy Spirit was undefined, unclarified and unsettled, made
statements which, if they are to be evaluated in themselves and with later
standards, can be interpreted in the sense of filioque. This conclusion,
though, cannot be maintained when these statements are considered within
the whole trinitarian thought of those Fathers.
In spite of certain ambiguities, one point, I think, is beyond question,
namely, that the “consensus” of the Greek Fathers never tolerated a hy-
postatic procession of the Holy Spirit a patre filioque even in the sense of ex
utroque tamquam ab uno principio et unica spiritione.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLICATIONS
OF THE FILIOQUE CONTROVERSY
DIETRICH RITSCHL
The Church in the West, in a long theological development, has added
the word filioque to the phrase “the Holy Spirit . . . who proceeds from the
Father” in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the only truly ecumenical
creed in Christianity. The thesis is that the Spirit proceeds from the Father
and from tHe Son. This reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit would
be completely misunderstood if it were taken to be something other than a
reference to an inner-trinitarian process. “Within” the triune God, within
the “immanent Trinity”, the Holy Spirit is to be understood as experiencing
an eternal processio from both the Father and the Son. To understand the
controversy over this issue,* 1 one must let one’s thoughts sink into the classical
trinitarian modes of argumentation. The theologian will then discover -
perhaps much to his surprise - that the issue is of considerable relevance to
our contemporary understanding of the Church, of ethics, of authoritative
teaching and - last but not least - of the various forms of the charismatic
movement in our time. It could be argued, of course, that it is daring to
move such subtle issues of inner-trinitarian speculations to the centre of
attention, especially at a time when many of us find it difficult to speak
about God at all. However, it could well be the case that the very study of
this subtle issue will show that western theology has suffered for a long time
from a tendency to speak of God “in general”, i.e. not of God as the triune
God. Such modalistic tendency (the reduction of Father, Son and Spirit to
three aspects of the Godhead, as it were) would indeed create difficulties
for “God-talk”.
• Dietrich Ritschl (Swiss Reformed) is professor of systematic theology at the Uni-
versity of Mainz, Federal Republic of Germany.
1 Cf. my briefer account of this controversy, “Geschichte der Kontroverse um das
Filioque”, in Concilium, Vol. 10, October 1979, pp. 499-504.
Historical development and implications 47
Behind the controversy lies a conception of the Trinity which is different
in the eastern and the western parts of the early Church. The controversy
itself, however, had at its centre at all times the unilateral decision of the
West to add an important trinitarian clause to the ecumenical creed. It is
difficult throughout the history of the controversy to draw dividing lines
between theological and political thoughts and sentiments. The early western
theologians’ incomplete understanding of the intricacies of eastern theology,
and the eastern theologians’ difficulties in appreciating western church his-
torical developments, as well as their criticism of Roman papal authority,
added much to the complexity of the controversy. The situation is further
burdened by the fact that western theology did not display any convincing
consistency in defending the filioque theologically. Medieval theologians,
notably Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, advanced justifications which were
quite different from the traditional “double procession” as taught by Au-
gustine or in the “Athanasianum”.
The western Church’s addition of the filioque to the Nicene Creed2 has
been refuted by theologians of the Orthodox churches at different stages of
the history of the controversy3 for at least three reasons. The addition is said
to be: (a) non-canonical, i.e. not based upon ecumenical council decisions,
(b) not grounded in the New Testament and in early tradition, and (c)
dogmatically untrue and of dangerous consequences. Orthodoxy today can
look back on an impressive array of defenders of the original text of the
Nicene Creed, reaching from John of Damascus to Patriarch Anthimos’
reply to Pope Leo XIII in 1894.
The problem of dealing with this controversy today presents itself on two
levels:
1. Is the filioque merely an addition to the text of the Nicene Creed - an
addition which contemporary Orthodox theologians could perhaps tolerate
or explain historically as a typical expression of Ambrosian-Augustinian
trinitarian thoughts? Or is the filioque the symptom of a deep difference in
the eastern and western understandings of the Trinity and, in consequence,
2 Western theology had the filioque long before the whole western Church had it. The
council decisions of Toledo in 446-7 and in 589 (the filioque- phrase in the council of
400 is most likely a later addition) are only part of the story. Not until the early
eleventh century was the filioque officially sung in the western mass.
3 Cf. the classic history by H. B. Swete, On the History of the Doctrine of the
Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Apostolic Age to the Death of Charlemagne,
1876; also M. Jugie, “Origine de la controverse sur l’addition du Filioque au symbole,”
Revue des Sciences philosophiques et theologiques , 28, 1939, pp. 369ff. ; also Francois
Dvomik, Le schisme de Photius, histoire et legende , Paris, Editions du Cerf, 1950.
48 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
of piety and worship, of the dogmatic understanding of the meaning of the
presence of Christ as well as of the Holy Spirit’s contact with the Church
and with humankind?
2. The filioque is considered in the East and in the West in quite different
ways and an entirely different degree of importance is assigned to it in the
two parts of the Church. This is so not because of different historical
analyses, but primarily because of the fact that the West assigns at least as
much dignity to the Apostles’ Creed as it does to the Nicene Creed. More-
over, the importance of fixed credal formulations is seen differently in East
and West. (There are, of course, among the various western traditions,
further differences of evaluation which need to be taken into account, i.e.
between the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican community and the
different Protestant denominations. Example: the writer of this paper is free
to favour the Orthodox critique of the filioque without getting into difficulties
with the church which ordained him.)
These two levels of the problem will have to be kept in mind by those
who search for a possible consensus on the filioque question. A promising
analysis of the issue depends upon a proper distinction between the historical
and the systematic aspects of the question. In the following account of the
history of the controversy and of its implications, we will proceed from a
brief summary of the external historical developments to a discussion of the
theological issues from the point of view of history of doctrine and conclude
by briefly describing the more recent stages of the dispute. Parts II and III
will pay special attention to the systematic-theological aspects.
I. A brief account of the external evidence of the controversy
The bare facts and years of the history of the controversy provide an
exceptionally incomplete picture of the issue in question. This is surprising
only if one considers the controversy a matter of conciliar decisions. It is,
however, much more than that. The councils of Toledo4 and the synods of
Gentilly, Frankfurt, Friuli and Aachen promulgated decisions which by no
means represented the official teaching of the pope in Rome, although the
concept of the filioque unquestionably did represent a theological tendency
in Latin theology if not a necessary corollary of the generally accepted
trinitarian concepts of Tertullian,5 Novatian,6 Ambrose7 and Augustine.8
4 The many councils of Toledo (from 400 until the sixteenth century, cf. Migne PL
84, 327-562) reflect the special problems of the Church in Spain: Arianism (Priscilli-
anism), the Muslim occupation, the reconquest, the replacing of the Mozarabic rite,
etc.
Historical development and implications 49
Moreover, the official decisions of the Church in the East, especially at
Constantinople, must be seen in the context of problems connected with the
Latin Church’s missionary strategy and activity among the Slavs (Bulgaria
in particular) and other tensions with Rome,9 not to speak of the fact that
the Latin West had at best understood half of what the Cappadocian Fathers
had been teaching about the Trinity. The classical Eastern Orthodox con-
cepts concerning the Trinity and the Holy Spirit were known to the West
(and to Augustine in particular) only in the form of summarized end-results.
The background of these results was not understood.10 Nor did the eastern
theologians, at the crucial time of the controversy, understand the difficult
situation of the Church in Spain in relation to new forms of Arianism, or
the peculiar interests of the Frankish Church at the time of Charlemagne.
In other words: the problem of the addition of the filioque has its context
in peculiar developments of history and in gradually evolving theological
positions; the possibilities for a consensus faded away with the increasing
lack of understanding of the other Church’s tradition and current problems.
The following list of events and dates, representing a selection of relevant
stages in the history of the controversy, is, therefore, no more than a
schematic presentation of a problem which is, in fact, much broader.
EVENTS AND TEXTS
WEST EAST
Early fifth century: filioque in
liturgical use in Spain (against
Priscillianism?) Toledo (446/
47)
Athanasianum (“Spiritus s. a
Patre et Filio . . . procedens”,
22)
589 3rd Council of Toledo12
633 4th Council of Toledo13
5 Adv. Praxean (after 213).
6 De trinitate (before 250).
7 The three books De Spiritu sancto.
8 De trinitate (399-419) and ep. 11 and 120.
9 Cf. Francois Dvornik, Byzance et la primaute romaine , Paris, Editions du Cerf,
1964.
10 Cf. B. Altaner’s summary of his investigation into the question of the western
reception of eastern theology in Revue benedictine, 62, 1952, pp. 201ff.-215.
11 Cf. J. N. D. Kelly, The Athanasian Creed , New York, 1964, esp. pp. 86-90.
12 Texts in A. Hahn, Bibliothek d. Symbole u. Glaubensregeln, Breslau, 1897, 3rd
edition, pp. 232ff.
13 Ibid., pp. 235f.
50 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
After 742: John of Damascus, Expos,
fid. orth. I, 8, 12, advances the
first eastern refutation of the
filioque
767 Synod of Gentiily
794 Synod of Frankfurt
796 Synod of Friuli: Paulinus of
Aquileia (d. 802) defended the
filioque ( Migne PL 99, 9-683)
Struggle between Frankish and eastern
monks at St Sabas monastery in
Jerusalem over the formers’ use
of the filioque
808 Leo III writes Charlemagne that
he believes the filioque to be
correct but does not want it
included in the Creed
809 Charlemagne asks Theodulf of
Orleans (d. 821) to write his De
Spiritu Sancto14
Synod of Aachen, filioque
included in the Creed
810 Synod in Rome: Leo III declares
the filioque orthodox but does
not want it included in the
Creed; two silver plaques with
the text of the unaltered Nicene
Creed exposed at St Peter’s in
Rome
810 Alcuin’s Deprocessione Spiritus S.
858 Photius replaces Ignatius as
Patriarch
863 Pope Nicholas I confirms
Ignatius as Patriarch
The Latin Church claims
Bulgaria
867 Photius (patriarch) condemns
missionary activity of Rome in
Bulgaria and rejects the filioque
Council of Constantinople
excommunicates Pope Nicholas
Also 867: Ignatius reinstated
869 Rome anathematizes Photius
869 Council of Constantinople
confirms Rome’s condemnation
of Photius
870 Rome condemns Ignatius’ claim
on Bulgaria
Papal legates to Constantinople
sign the Creed without filioque
877 Ignatius dies; Photius again
patriarch
14 Migne PL 105, 187ff.
Historical development and implications 51
and confirm Photius’
reinstallation (so F. Dvornik
against older research)
892 Rome excommunicates Photius?
(Dvornik thinks this a later
forgery)
1009 Pope Sergius IV includes the
filioque in his statement of faith
addressed to Constantinople
1014 Pope Benedict VIII16 officially
adds the filioque to the Nicene
Creed (pressured by Emperor
Heinrich II) as part of the
Roman mass
1274 Council of Lyons,17 reunion
attempted
Eastern delegates accept the
filioque (and papal supremacy)
1 438/39 Council of Florence, the
patriarch and all Orthodox
delegates (except Mark of
Ephesus) signed the filioque as
well as other points of Roman
doctrine
879-80 Council of Constantinople
recalls decision of 869
886 Emperor Leo VI deposes
Photius
Cf. Photius’ Liber de Spiritus S.
mystagogia15
Pope Sergius’ namesake, Patriarch
Sergius, omits the pope’s
name from the official
diptychs (such has happened
before by mistake)
Emperor Michael VIII (1259-82)
reapproaches Rome in need of
help against the Turks
Eastern churches recall the agreement
of the delegates to Lyons
No official proclamation of the
decision in Byzantium until
1452
29 May 1453: destruction of
Constantinople (after
combined Orthodox and
Roman service at Hagia
Sophia early on same day)
The actual “ filioque controversy”, as it is treated in history books, is
connected with the name of Patriarch Photius, a learned theologian and a
problematic personality. His doctrine - procession “from the Father alone”
- was theologically grounded and politically defended. But since Photius
had no western counterpart to match his theological and philosophical learn-
ing, the West resorted to almost exclusively political manoeuvring in com-
batting his position. This attitude remained typical of the western Church
until and including Pope Benedict’s official addition of the filioque to the
text of the creed. Benedict VIII himself was certainly more interested in the
wars against Saracens and Greeks than in theology. A potentially serious
theological controversy was reduced to political power struggles. The lucidity
15 Migne PC 102; cf. in addition to Dvornik the older article “Photius” by F. Katten-
busch, in RE (3rd ed., 1904), pp. 374-393.
16 Migne PL 142, 1060f.
17 Denz. 460-63.
52 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
of Augustine’s trinitarian thoughts and the helpful attempts of explaining
the differences between East and West by Maximus the Confessor in the
seventh century seemed to have disappeared from the memory of the par-
ticipants of the struggle. The Councils of Lyons and of Florence, with their
attempts to impose the filioque upon the eastern Church, brought no solution
and created much bitterness on the part of eastern Christians. The final
mass, sung by Greeks and Latins together on the morning of 29 May 1453,
the day of the destruction of Constantinople - fourteen years after the
Council of Florence - is like a funeral song to a constructive theological
exchange between East and West.
The thin contacts between the churches of the Reformation and eastern
Orthodoxy did not lead to a re-examination of the filioque question. The
confession books of the Reformation maintained the filioque , partly because
of the relatively high esteem for the Athanasianum. One of the few experts
on western theology in the East, Cyril Lukaris (murdered in 1638), did not
reopen the discussion either. But Peter Mogila, also very familiar with
western thought, attacked th e filioque in his Orthodox Confession together
with papal primacy.
The development since the seventeenth century can again be listed ac-
cording to significant events, whereby the theological positions of the An-
glican and the Old Catholic churches become increasingly relevant to the
filioque question.
EVENTS AND TEXTS
WEST
Seventeenth century: various theological
writers in England reconsider the
filioque in the interest of contact
with Eastern Orthodoxy
1742 Pope Benedict XIV considers the
filioque not as conditio sine qua
non for union with the Orthodox
Church18
Nineteenth century: several English
theologians advocate the deletion
of the filioque from the Nicene
Creed
EAST
In Peter Mogila’s Orthodox Confession
(1642-3) the filioque (and papal
primacy) are called separating
issues
18 Cf. however, the professio fidei Orientalibus (Maronitis) praescripta, Denz. 1459-
1473.
Historical development and implications 53
1874/5 Consultations between Old
Catholic and Orthodox Churches
in Bonn, with Anglican
representation. Old Catholics
begin with process of deletion of
the filioque
1894 Pope Leo XIII appeals to
Orthodox churches to unite with
Rome
1912 Anglican-Orthodox consultations
in St Petersburg, continued by
1931 Joint Doctrinal Commission19
which was reconstituted later and
1973 met in Oxford and
1976 in Moscow
1978 Lambeth Conference recommends
the deletion of the filioque clause20
Patriarch Anthimos of Constantinople
replies that union is acceptable if
Rome can demonstrate full
consensus in doctrine until ninth
century, including the proof that
the filioque has been taught by the
early eastern Fathers
This very brief summary requires some preliminary comments. It is ob-
vious from the outset that the actual development of the controversy was
interwoven with political interests and conflicts. But to observe this does not
permit the conclusion that the issue as such was a political one. It was not.
The issue is a trinitarian question, viz. an entirely different development of
concepts and expectations concerning trinitarian theology in East and West.
More helpful than the reference to political and church-political interests
would be the observation that East and West operated with “irreducibly
diverse forms of thought”, as Avery Dulles puts it in quoting W. Kasper.21
But even after having insisted on this way of approaching the famous con-
troversy one must proceed to an investigation at a deeper level. Nor will it
suffice to list the passages in the few Greek Fathers who openly teach a
19 See Anglo-Russian Theological Conference, ed. H. M. Waddams, London, Faith
Press, 1958; also H. A. Hodges, Anglicanism and Orthodoxy, London, SCM Press,
1955, and the essays by N. Zernov and G. Florovsky in A History of the Ecumenical
Movement, ed. R. Rouse and S. C. Neill, London, 1954.
20 See Report of the Lambeth Conference 1978, pp. 51f.; also Anglican-Orthodox
Dialogue, The Moscow Statement . . . Joint Doctrinal Commission 1976, London,
SPCK, 1977, ed. K. Ware and C. Davey, pp. 97ff., with a history of the dialogue,
pp. 4-37.
21 Avery Dulles, SJ, The Survival of Dogma, Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1973,
p. 167.
54 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
filioque- concept,22 or the statements of some more recent Orthodox theo-
logians who seem to tolerate the filioque.23
The tension which erupted in the filioque controversy has its roots in the
different trinitarian concepts in the Latin and Greek churches. These dif-
ferences, in turn, are part of different forms of piety and of expectations
regarding the accessibility of God or of the Holy Spirit. Without being able
to go into a full investigation of these important areas, it will be necessary
to list at least some of the basic trinitarian concepts which lie behind these
other differences between the two parts of the Church.
II. The theological issues behind the controversy
The decision is arbitrary where to begin in describing the development of
patristic trinitarian thought. If one is interested in the philosophical and
systematic conditions available to the early Fathers for articulating trinitarian
concepts, one might best look at the details of Aristotelian influence upon
Greek theology in the fourth century, especially the second half and - with
regard to Latin theology - one would have to look at Ambrose’s and
Augustine’s peculiar ways of appropriating Plotinus’ philosophy (merged
with Aristotelian and Stoic cosmology). If, however, one focuses on the
history of theology in the narrower sense, the proper starting point in the
East would be Athanasius24 and the fuller development of his thoughts in
the Cappadocians25 and in Didymus the Blind and Evagrius; in the West it
would undoubtedly be Tertullian.26 With regard to the roots of the
filioque- problem one would have to look also at early conciliar decisions,
i.e. the synod of Alexandria in 362 which was expressly confirmed in Con-
stantinople in 381. Moreover, one would have to bear in mind that the
whole conceptuality - in the East and in the West - would not have been
possible without Plotinus’ philosophical categories. These analyses cannot,
of course, be carried out here. The purpose of the following observations is
22 One passage in Cyril of Alexandria ( Thesaurus de . . . trinitate 34), one in Epi-
phanius, also Ephraem Syrus, and others.
23 Moderate: the Russian theologian V. Bolotov; radical: Pavel Svetlov.
24 Cf. D. Ritschl, Athanasius, Zurich, EVZ, Theologische Studien 76, 1964; T. F.
Torrance, “Athanasius: A Study in the Foundations of Classical Theology’’, Theology
in Reconciliation, London, 1975, pp. 215-266, and Theodore C. Campbell, “The
Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Theology of Athanasius”, Scottish Journal of
Theology, November 1974, pp. 408-440.
25 Still important Karl Holl, Amphilochius v. Ikonium in seinem Verbaltnis zu den
grossen Kappadoziern, Tubingen, 1904.
26 Cf. John Burleigh, “The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Latin Fathers”, Scottish
Journal of Theology, June 1954, pp. 113-132.
Historical development and implications 55
merely to provide some material for the understanding of the fact that the
theology of the Church in the East could not possibly have produced the
filioque concept whereas the Church in the West could perhaps not have
done without it.
A. Athanasius and the Cappadocians
Theology in the East only gradually learnt to distinguish between owia
and evepyeia and between ouaCa and tmocxTaais, or viroaTaai*; and Trpo-
crtoTTov. It is clear, however, that, after the work of the Cappadocians the
distinction between otxna and the evepyetai had become absolutely essential
for Greek theology. Although the “energies” in God cannot be separated
from his oixiCa it is impossible for the believers to reach God in his very
own ovcrCa which transcends all beings, names and concepts. Any being has
its being only in the evepyeiai of (or within) God and it is in participating
in God’s energies that the believers can enter into communion with God.
This view, the heart of Orthodox theology, fully developed by Gregory
Palamas, is basically present in Athanasius. The terms were not clear in
Athanasius and it is not surprising that the western Church was able to claim
Athanasius as well. But the substance of later theology in the East was
already present in Athanasius and the claim by the Cappadocians that they
legitimately continued Athanasius’ approach is mostly justified. (However,
modern research has shown that there were other theologians who influenced
the Cappadocians, but their importance was suppressed because of lack of
orthodoxy in certain points; one such example is Apollinaris of Laodicea27
whom Harnack calls the “great teacher of the Cappadocians” 28.)
Athanasius teaches in Contra Arianos, and later in Ad Serapionem, that
Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell in one another, that the Spirit is not to
be thought of on a lower level than the Son, and that the believers’ partici-
pation in God is a participation of the Spirit.29 The word is the bridge in this
participation. Since the word is in the Father, and since the word and the
Spirit participate fully in the Father, and since the word is with the believers
(and in them), so the believers are in God in the Spirit. In this construction
27 Cf. E. Muhlenberg, Apollinaris von Laodicea, Gottingen, 1969 and T. F. Torrance,
“The Mind of Christ in Worship: The Problem of Apollinarianism in Worship”, in
Theology in Reconciliation , pp. 139-214.
28 A. v. Harnack, DG (4th ed.), II, p. 295.
29 D. Ritschl, “Die Einheit mit Christus im Denken der griechischen Vater”, Kon-
zepte, Ges. Aufsatze Bd. I, Bern 1976, pp. 78-101, and ch. II in Memory and Hope,
An Inquiry Concerning the Presence of Christ, New York, London, Collier Macmillan,
1967.
56 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
of both the Trinity and the believers’ participation in God, the phrase
“through the Son” is quite appropriate. In fact, the 8ia tou Yiou was (and
is) a proper theological formula in Eastern Orthodoxy, although its similarity
with the western “from the Son” resulted over the centuries in a distrust of
eastern theologians for the originally proper concept. Athanasius still teaches
clearly that God is “over all” and also “through all and in all”, that the Son
is “through all” and the Spirit “in all”. This is the basis for speaking of the
vicarious work of the Spirit on behalf of those who are “in the Spirit”. There
is a communion of the Spirit with the believers which is grounded in the
communion of the Son who is in the Spirit and the Spirit who is in the Son.
The incarnation of the word is, in turn, the ground for the believers’ recep-
tion of the Spirit. However, the Spirit so fully participates in both, the
Father and the Xoyos and this for reasons of a total unity of God’s being
and activity (evepyeux), that there are some reasons for questioning the later
Eastern Orthodox theologians’ claim that Athanasius too is a crown witness
of the distinction between the owia and ’evepyetai in the triune God. It
could be argued that Athanasius’ concept of God making himself present
through the Word and in the Spirit tends to identify God’s “being in himself’
with the way the believers recognize him. The ultimate abolition of the
distinction between the immanent and the economic Trinity is, of course,
dear to western theology. (It is, e.g., the basic theological-epistemological
thesis in Karl Barth’s dogmatics.) It could be argued further that in this
point the West has understood Athanasius better than has later Byzantine
theology. Since our interest here is not in Athanasius’ theology as such but
in the eastern trinitarian concepts which necessitated a denial of the filioque,
we can leave undecided the problem just mentioned.
The Cappadocians’ interest is characterized by their emphasis on the
oneness of the three persons in the Trinity (against Neo-Arians) as well as
on the differentiation of the three uTroordaeis within the unity of the three
(against the charge that they taught “two sons”). Whereas Basil is the first
to rethink the term uTrooracris although without clearly defining the Spirit’s
eternal procession, Gregory Nazianzen introduced the notion of eK-rropewis,
while Gregory of Nyssa reflected upon the continuation of this thought by
speaking of the “through the son”-concept. All three of them, of course,
accepted the op^omkriov of the Spirit. The reasons they give for this are
connected always with the insight that the believers’ knowledge of God
would be incomplete or impossible if the Spirit were a ktutjiql Thus from
the outset the soteriological argument and the direct reference to the liturgy
in worship are part of the whole theological reflection.
Basil faces honestly the problem of the Spirit’s neither being cryevvTiTov
Historical development and implications 57
nor 7evv7iTov nor being a ktictis30, and in De spiritu sancti he appears to
teach the procession of the Spirit from the Son, although Holl,31 denying
that he means to do that, says rather that Basil, referring here to the inner
Ta£is within the Trinity, actually distinguishes between an inner order and
the outer appearances of the TrpoacoTra. With regard to the recognizable
TTpoo-ama the order is - as it was in Athanasius - from the Father through
the Son in the Spirit. With regard to the inner-trinitarian relations, however,
Basil does not have available a concept for the Holy Spirit equivalent to the
ytwqaCa of the Son.
The situation is somewhat different in Gregory Nazianzen in that he -
despite fundamental agreement with his teacher Basil - places much em-
phasis on the origination of the Spirit. A basic text for him is John 15:26.
The notion of €Kir6p€\xji«; permits him to define the iSiottis of the Spirit, a
notion parallel to the yevvTicria of the Son. Gregory’s trinitarian interest is,
as it was for Basil, intimately connected with the spiritual condition of the
believers whose iJ/uxti he distinguishes from the vous. It is the vous that is to
reach similarity with God (TcXeuoo-is). This construction operates with the
notion of ayevv-qaCa, yevv^ats and eKiropewis. This Gregory considers
sufficient proof against the charge that he teaches 8uo mot in God. It is
important to note that Gregory Nazianzen does not use the phrase eKiro-
p€\xris 8ia tou Yiou or something like it. Thus Gregory goes beyond Basil
in providing a clear and helpful terminology, but it cannot really be said
that his five theological Orations provide complete clarity on the question
of the origination of the Spirit.
Gregory of Nyssa, of course, also bases his thinking on the trinitarian
thinking of Basil but he adds a complex of thoughts concerning absolute
goodness, evil and the original state of man. The influence of Origen and in
general of Neo-Platonism is more noticeable than in Basil and Gregory
Nazianzen. An interest in a kind of history of salvation, i.e. of the soul’s
gradual approach towards God, is closely connected with his concept of the
Trinity. Gregory’s teaching presupposes an immanent concept; God is rj
^ooottoios 8uvap,is. This 8uvap.i<; operates immanently in a threefold way:
ttt|7ti |xev 8uvdp,€<x)s ecniv 6 IlaTqp, Swapis 8e tou IlaTpos 6 Yids, Suvd|xea)s
&€ 7rveu|xa to nveujxa ‘'Ayiov.32 This immanent Trinity works towards the
outside, but in such a fashion that it is always clear that the Father is the
TTTiyfi, the source, that the evepyeia is with the Son and the TeXeioDois with
30 Contra Eunom. Ill, Migne PG 29, 668B.
31 Op. cit., p. 141.
32 Migne PG 45, 1317 ( adv . Maced.).
58 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
the Spirit. The Father is cryevv'qTos, the Son is |jiovoy€vf|<;. Again: there is
only one Son in the Trinity. It could be argued that Gregory of Nyssa places
all emphasis on the economic concept of the Trinity. It is more plausible,
however, to say that this is not so. The Father is amov, the Son and the
Spirit are ek too glitlou. It follows clearly: no filioque concept is being taught.
The aiTia of the Spirit is in the Father, but the Son mediates in the works
of the Trinity ad extra. The Holy Spirit is 8ia tou Yto\> and not from the
Son. This distinction between eternal origination and economic mediation
is of great importance. The Cappadocians, like all Orthodox theologians of
the East, leave no doubt that the inner or immanent Trinity is a mystery
into which human thought cannot penetrate.33 All the more important is the
work of the Spirit, the theological understanding of which Gregory of Nyssa
translated into mystical-ascetic thoughts which, in turn, influenced Ps. Dion-
ysios Areopagita and, through him, most of eastern tradition. This combi-
nation of practical piety and worship with the complicated trinitarian
thoughts is the most characteristic feature of Eastern Orthodoxy. From the
point of view of our interest in the filioque, the most important dogmatic
assertion of classical eastern theology is the insight that God the Father is
the iTTjyTi, the source, and pC£a, the root, of the Godhead with its dynamic
energies which reach and transform (or transfigurate) the believers in the
Spirit who, in turn, is in the Son as the Son is in him. It is correct to say,
therefore, that the Spirit reaches the believers 8ia tov Ylov, but it is mean-
ingless to say that the Holy Spirit eternally originates from the Father and
from the Son, as though there were two sources or two roots.
The difference between East and West on the addition of the filioque to
the Nicene Creed is an expression of the differences concerning the episte-
mological relation between the economic and an immanent concept of the
Trinity.
B. Early western concepts of the Trinity
Although a synod in Rome in 382 accepted the trinitarian dogma of
Constantinople of 381, it cannot be said that the West had fully understood
the eastern trinitarian theology. Nor has Augustine - whose conception of
the Trinity became the western concept - fully apprehended the decision of
the second ecumenical council in 381 and of the Cappadocians’ teaching on
33 Cf. Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God, London, Faith Press, 1963, also his The
Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church , London, Clarke, 1957, with his emphasis
on the difference of eastern and western spirituality in relation to the single procession
of the Holy Spirit, a concept which alone permits the transfiguration or deification of
the believer in Christ.
Historical development and implications 59
the Trinity. There were language barriers - and more than that. Augustine
stood deeply in the tradition of Tertullian and of Ambrose and, as Harnack
judges34 - perhaps overdoing the point - Augustine would never have
thought of the Trinity had he not felt himself bound to the tradition in which
he stood.
Ambrose, with his interest in the Cappadocians and his admiration for
Athanasius, emphasized the unity and oneness of God along with the un-
searchable mystery of the Trinity, and was tending towards a practical
identification of the Holy Spirit with the Father. This is historically quite
understandable, but it certainly is not a valid representation of Athanasius
and his followers in the East. Athanasius may have been truly presented,
however, in Ambrose and Augustine’s unwillingness to make much of a
differentiation between the immanent and the economic Trinity. Ambrose’s
doctrine of the Trinity shows the same aporetic difficulties which we find in
Augustine, the difficulty of harmonizing the two concepts: one in three and
three in one. If this conceptual paradox is the mystery of the Trinity, surely
the western Church celebrates another mystery than does the Church in the
East.
The work of Marcellus of Ancyra35 should be mentioned here, partly
because it influenced Rufinus whose concepts of the Trinity (indebted to
Cyril of Jerusalem) and of the procession of the Spirit influenced later
western theology. Marcellus had taught an economic modalism, i.e. the Son
and the Spirit appeared only in order to perform certain functions. It is
noteworthy that Marcellus’ orthodoxy was accepted at Rome in 340 and at
Sardica in 343.
Pelikan36 maintains (against Schindler) that Augustine in his trinitarian
thinking was deeply influenced by Hilary of Poitiers’ caution not to allow a
differentiation between the economic and the immanent concept of the
Trinity. Hilary implicitly taught th e filioque. If this is the case, and also the
influence of Marcellus and Rufinus on later western concepts, one would
have reasons to suspect that the filioque of later western theology grew out
of the western theological unwillingness to distinguish between the economic
and the immanent Trinity. If this conclusion is correct, it would also follow
that Tertullian is not really a witness for later filioquism. This can briefly be
demonstrated.
34 A. v. Harnack, Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte , 7th ed., Tubingen, 1931, p. 237.
35 Cf. T. Evan Pollard, “Marcellus of Ancyra, A Neglected Father”, in Epektasis (for
Jean Danielou), Paris, 1972, pp. 187-196.
36 J. Pelikan, “Hilary on Filioque”, in his Development of Christian Doctrine , New
Haven, Yale University Press, 1969, pp. 120-141.
60 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Tertullian’s Adversus Praxean was occasioned by the ideas of the Mon-
archian Praxeas whose concern was not the Spirit but the relation between
the monarchy of God and the life of Jesus. Nor was Tertullian’s concept of
the Trinity shaped by a special interest in the Spirit, an interest one might
suspect because of Tertullian’s relation to Montanism. His concern was
rather the understanding of the economic distributio and distinctio of the
three personae with the one substantia, potestas, virtus of God, a differentia
per distinctionem which on the one hand guarantees the unity of the divine
substance, on the other the fact that God is not unicus et singularis. This he
could have only at the price of declaring the Son and the Spirit portiones of
the divine substance, but fully part of that substance nevertheless. In choos-
ing between a three-partition of God and inferiority of the Son and the
Spirit in relation to the Father, Tertullian chose the latter. This subordi-
nationism, however, is not our concern here. What is interesting is the
concept of procession from the Father alone. Tertullian teaches in Adversus
Praxean (4) that Son and Spirit proceed merely for the purpose of creation
and revelation and that both proceed ex unitate patri (19). In this basic
assertion Tertullian does not differ from later Greek concepts, although, of
course, his understanding of the reasons for the procession are entirely
different from, for example, the concept of the Cappadocians. The Spirit,
who proceeds a patre perfilium , occupies a “third grade” within the majesty
of God: the Son “ interim acceptum a Patre munus effudit Spiritum Sanctum,
tertium nomen divinitatis et tertium gradum majestatis . . .” (30,5). However,
this still amounts to the assertion that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. t
Tertullian teaches the mediatorship of the Son in the procession of the Spirit
from the Father, which is to say that he distinguishes between origination
and procession. “ Tertius enim est Spiritus a Deo et Filio sicut tertius a radice
fructus ex fructice et tertius a fonte rivus ex flumine et tertius a sole apex ex
radio ” (8,7). The Spirit, like the Son, is (only) a portio of the divine
substance, although he receives it directly, whereas the Spirit receives it
indirectly from the Father. Such reception occurred before creation, for it
was in creation that the Spirit cooperated as the third person of the Trinity
(cf. 12,3). For these reasons it does not amount to much to claim Tertullian
as a crown witness for the classical western understanding of the filioque, as
has often been done. A crown witness he is, to be sure, for western tend-
encies towards modalism.
The important innovation in Augustine is the (philosophical) decision to
think the Trinity not by beginning, as it were, with the Father, but with the
Trinity itself. The relationes of the three persons condition each of them in
dependence to the others, so much so, that Augustine teaches the Son’s
Historical development and implications 61
active participation in his own sending (i.e. his incarnation). The combina-
tion of the neoplatonic idea of simplicity with the biblical concept of the
personhood of God is the main thesis. All three persons of the Trinity share
in these qualities which together amount to one principium. Augustine must ,
therefore, teach the filioque. The reasons he gives for this in De Trinitate
and in the Homilies on John are elaborate and convincing - provided one
shares his quasi modalistic understanding of the inner-trinitarian relationes.
Still unsolved, however, is the problem why the Son should not be thought
of as having proceeded from the Spirit, unless one interprets “conceived by
the Holy Spirit” in just this way. In other words: as soon as historical
references are made to Israel, to the coming of Jesus, to the Church (i.e. to
“economic” dimensions), Augustine’s inner-trinitarian concept does not
seem to be relevant.37 The Trinity almost becomes a perfect triangle which
“in its work” ad extra , as it were, seems reducible to a single point. In
Augustine’s teaching it is merely the impact of the content of the Bible
which prevents the logically possible conclusion that the Father and Son
proceed from the Spirit. It is this impact, too, which persuades Augustine
to teach that, although the Spirit is the symmetrical bond of love ( vinculum
caritatis ) between Father and Son and proceeds from both, the Spirit pro-
ceeds principaliter from the Father (De trin. 15, 17, 29). Thus Augustine’s
doctrine of the “double procession”, which became typical of later theology
including the Athanasianum, was somewhat balanced by this assertion. This
led at a later stage of theology (e.g. the Council of Lyons) to the idea of a
single spiration, spiratio , by which the Spirit is said to proceed from the two
sources as from one single source.
III. Implications of more recent stages of the controversy
After this survey of the development of those aspects of patristic trinitarian
thought which have a bearing on the later filioque controversy, it is safe to
conclude that the important trinitarian decisions on the filioque issue were
made long before the controversy began. This is why the controversy itself
is more of church-historical than of theological significance.
With reference to eastern theology, it must be said of course that Photius’
insistence on the procession from the “Father alone” (“Photism”), further
developed by Gregory the Cypriot38 and Gregory Palamas, did present some
37 Cf. my discussion of this critical interpretation of Augustine’s implicit modalism in
Konzepte / (see footnote 29), pp. 102ff. and 123-140.
38 Cf. O. Clement, “Gregoire de Chypre, De 1’ekporese du Saint Esprit”, Istina, 1972,
No. 3-4, pp. 443-456.
62 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
new theological concepts.39 Several eastern authors drew attention to the
shortcomings of the traditional western identification between the economic
and the immanent Trinity, e.g. the Bulgarian Archbishop Theophylact of
Ochrid in the eleventh century. Here lie indeed the roots of the whole
controversy. But decisively new theological thoughts on the Trinity and on
the procession of the Spirit have not been produced by later Eastern Ortho-
doxy. Besides, such innovating ideas would not be in harmony with Eastern
Orthodoxy’s self-understanding. The emphasis on the philosophical concepts
introduced by the Cappadocian Fathers in order to point to the mystery of
the Trinity has remained typical of all later eastern theology. The question
of the relation between the Son and the Spirit has remained basically
unsolved.
With reference to western theology, on the other hand, it must be admitted
that Anselm and Thomas Aquinas’ justifications of the filioque do seem to
have introduced new elements to the discussion. Alasdair Heron40 makes
much of the difference between Augustine and Anselm’s position on the
matter. He draws attention to the fact that Augustine’s allowance for a
procession of the Spirit principaliter from the Father is in Anselm41 and
Thomas Aquinas42 given up in favour of a completely triangular concept of
the Trinity. Anselm is vulnerable to Lossky’s criticisms, Heron maintains,
whereas Augustine - who seems to Heron to be closer to a “through-the-
son-concept” - is not. Here is not the place to argue this interpretative
problem. It seems that good reasons could be advanced to show that Au-
gustine too is vulnerable to Lossky’s harsh critique of implicit western mod-
alism. Be this as it may, the Councils of Lyons and Florence show the clear
influence of both Augustinian and of Anselm and Thomas’ trinitarian
thought. Later stages in the history of theology, for example at the time of
the Reformation, do not give evidence of any new thoughts on the matter.
It amounts to little to ask the question whether Luther in his opposition to
A. Karlstadt and Thomas Miintzer consciously made use of filioquism in
combatting the enthusiasts’ claim that the Holy Spirit may also blow “out-
side” the realm of the written word (or if word stands for the second person
39 Cf. V. Lossky, “The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Triadology”, Eastern
Church Quarterly, 7, 1948, pp. 31ff. See also U. Kiiry, “Die Bedeutung des
Filioque-Streites fur den Gottesdienst der abendlandischen und der morgenlandischen
Kirche”, IKZ, 33, 1943, pp. Iff.
40 A. I. C. Heron, “Who Proceedeth from the Father and the Son”, Scottish Journal
of Theology, 4, 1971, pp. 149ff.
41 De processione Spiritus S., e.g. 9.
42 Summa theologiae, I, q. 36, Art. 2-4.
Historical development and implications 63
of the Trinity, it could also be said “outside” the mission of the Son). De
facto this is what he did teach and the position taken was well in line with
classical western anti-Montanist thought. The emphasis in the Roman
Church on papal primacy and on the institution of the Church has its perfect
parallel in the Reformation churches’ insistence on the primacy of the written
word in its function of a criterion with which to judge the movements of the
Spirit - a parallel at least with regard to the ecclesiological utilization of
trinitarian thought. Moreover, the protestant authors in England who con-
cerned themselves with the filioque, e.g. William Sherlock (1690), John
Pearson and E. Stillingfleet (1664), either did not understand the gravity of
the issue (as in the case of Sherlock), or ultimately reached a position close
to filioquism. The learned nineteenth century author and hymn-writer J. M.
Neale came closest to refuting the filioque. But new thoughts were not
added. At best there was a recollection of the importance of distinguishing
between the “eternal procession” and the “temporal mission” of the Holy
Spirit, a distinction without which much unnecessary misunderstanding
occurs.
If eastern theology has failed to provide a satisfactory explanation of the
relation between the Son and the Spirit, and if western theology is right in
suspecting in Eastern Orthodoxy an undue emphasis on the Father’s ijlov-
apxta as well as an over-emphasis on (Aristotelian) philosophical concepts
with which to approach the mystery of the Trinity, western theology surely
has shown its shortcomings in its undue tendency to blend together Father,
Son and Spirit into a monotheistically conceived “godhead” and by pre-
maturely identifying economic with immanent trinitarian structures. Nikos
Nissiotis43 would then be right in saying that neither East nor West has
produced an adequate theology of the Holy Spirit and that western “chris-
tomonism” and filioquism cannot be an economic substitute for an inner-
trintarian structure.
Karl Barth44 has provided one of the most extensive defences of the
filioque in twentieth century theology. It is Heron’s judgment that Barth
follows entirely the lines of Anselm’s trinitarian thought. This may indeed
be the case. More important almost is the obvious tendency in Barth to see
43 Die Theologie der Ostkirche im okumenischen Dialog, Stuttgart, Evangelisches
Verlagswerk, 1968, p. 26. Cf. also J. N. Karmiris, “Abriss der dogmatischen Lehre
der orth. kath. Kirche”, in P. Bratsiotis, ed., Die Orthodoxe Kirche in griechischer
Sicht, I, Stuttgart, Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1959, pp. 15-120, esp. 30-34.
44 K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, 1/1, paragraph 12 (German, pp. 496-514), Edinburgh,
T. & T. Clark.
64 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
the safeguard against a free-floating spiritualism, which he rightly desires to
see anchored in the immanent Trinity. While with regard to the relationes
in the Trinity Barth argues deductively, he proceeds inductively with respect
to the ultimate defence of the filioque: the economic desirability of making
clear at all times that the Spirit of God is Christ’s Spirit is seen to be rooted
in the immanent Trinity. The expression of this desirability is quite under-
standable; the question remains, however, whether perhaps the price paid
is too high, viz. the tendency to modalism, and hence, the lack of a dynamic
doctrine of the Spirit. George Hendry45 criticizes Barth’s and ultimately
Augustine’s defence of the filioque. He does not provide, however, an
alternative which could be acceptable to western and also to eastern the-
ology. The decisions of the Old Catholics to delete the filioque from the
Nicene Creed and the more recent Anglican recommendations have been
accompanied and supported by many learned historical studies, but new
theological thoughts have not really grown out of these endeavours, unless
one would call the partially improved contacts with Eastern Orthodoxy a
new theological result. The deeper issue, however, the solution of which
alone would be ecumenically promising, is a new way of approaching the
much belaboured relation between the economic and the immanent Trinity,
i.e. a new way of trinitarian articulation. The old ways can altogether be
intellectually analysed, all intricacies can be understood,46 provided one
invests sufficient time and patience, but these analyses as such do not pro-
duce what is needed today.
In approaching the question of the Trinity, it is important to remember
that any reference to the Trinity is originally doxological in nature. This is
important in our time when God-talk is so severely challenged and trinitarian
thinking so obviously neglected. Doxological affirmations are not primarily
definitions or descriptions, rather ascriptive lines of thought, speech and
action which are offered to God himself. Trinitarian thought in the early
Church originated within doxological contexts and it is only within such
contexts that we can speak of the “inner life” of the triune God. But, as the
early Eastern Fathers made clear, all such doxological references to that
inner life must be checked by reference back to the biblical message con-
cerning God’s activity and presence with his people. Such reference will
45 The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, Philadelphia, 1956 (London, 1965), pp. 30-
52. See also Donald L. Berry, “Filioque and the Church”, Journal of Ecumenical
Studies, summer 1968, pp. 535-554.
46 See e.g. the issue of Istina, No. 3-4, 1972, devoted to this task (pp. 257-467). Cf.
also Paul Henry, S.J., “Contre le ‘Filioque’ ”, Irenikon, Vol. XL VIII, pp. 170-177.
Historical development and implications 65
show that the Spirit is confessed to have been instrumental in the coming of
| Christ (“conceived by the Holy Spirit”), and to have been the life-giving
power of God in his resurrection. Jesus during his ministry promised the
sending of the Spirit, and the earliest Christians understood Pentecost as the
fulfilment of that promise. Thus the Spirit precedes the coming of Christ, is
active throughout his life, and is also sent by him to the believers. This chain
of observations suggests that it would be insufficient and perhaps illegitimate
to “read back” into the Trinity only those New Testament passages which
:! refer to the sending of the Spirit by Jesus.
A restructuring of trinitarian articulation will have to pay equal attention
to the actual experience of the early Christians and of Christian existence
today, to the “synthetic” thoughts - mostly in doxological dress - concerning
God’s presence in Israel, in the coming of Jesus and in the Church, as they
were expressed by the earliest witnesses of trinitarian thought, and surely
I also to the logical and linguistic conditions of our time. One must not forget
| that, from its beginnings in the second and third centuries, the doctrine of
I the Trinity was intended to be a help for Christian believers, not an obstacle
nor an abstract intellectual superimposition upon the “simple faith”. For it
i was in simple faith that the early Christians experienced the presence of the
I triune God. They did not deduce their theological conclusions from a pre-
;i conceived trinitarian concept. So, too, in our reconsideration of trinitarian
| concepts, it is desirable that we, in following the cognitive process of the
! early Church, take ecclesiology as the appropriate theological starting point
1 for re-examining the function of trinitarian thought in the Church’s faith,
life and work.
B.
DEVELOPMENTS
IN THE VARIOUS TRADITIONS
TOWARDS AN ECUMENICAL AGREEMENT
ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
AND THE ADDITION
OF THE FILIOQUE TO THE CREED
: ANDRE DE HALLEUX
The insertion of the word filioque into the liturgical creed and the doctrinal
controversy on the procession of the Holy Spirit to which it gave rise continue
| to form part of the centuries-old controversy between Orthodoxy and Cath-
I olicism today, even though many historians and theologians are now inclined
to see it as no more than a pretext, or at most the occasion, for a schism
which was really engendered by the antagonism between ecclesiastical power
structures and a progressive alienation of minds and hearts. The biblical,
patristic, canonical and rational arguments have been rehearsed unweary-
ingly and with the same variations by both sides right down to and including
the interconfessional symposia and colloquies of recent decades. The only
real light and shade in this interminable quarrel has been the alternation
between long periods of mutual incomprehension and the exchange of an-
athemas and short-lived attempts at reconciliation. Negative as this summary
may appear, it could equally well throw into sharp relief the necessary
conditions and the possibilities of a hopeful approach to this question in the
present ecumenical climate. It is in this spirit that these brief reflections of
i a Roman Catholic theologian are offered. I speak only for myself and my
| purpose is not so much to present a concrete solution as rather to clear away
i some of the obstacles blocking the road along which the quest for a rec-
; onciliation desired by all should be pursued.
Official discussions
The Orthodox Church, which is shortly to begin an official theological
dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church on the theme of pneumatology,
has recently resumed similar conversations with two other western partners
• Andr6 de Halleux (Roman Catholic) is professor of patrology at the University
of Louvain, Belgium.
70 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
- the Old Catholics and the Anglican Communion - which pick up a dialogue
inaugurated in Bonn more than a century ago. This suggests that our starting
point should be an appraisal of the ecumenical significance of the results
already arrived at in these two recent dialogues.
At the conclusion of its meeting in Chambesy in 1975, the Joint
Orthodox-Old Catholic Commission announced its rejection of the filioque
not simply as an uncanonicai addition to the Creed but also and above all
as an erroneous doctrine. The procession of the Spirit from the Father and
the Son, or even of the Father through the Son, is no longer recognized here
as a legitimate theologoumenon as it had been by the same two partners
during the Bonn conversations of a century ago. The 8i’ Ytou is henceforth
restricted to the temporal mission of the Spirit, whose eternal procession
from the Father alone is declared to be warranted by Holy Scripture, the
Creed and the entire ancient Church.
Meeting in Moscow in 1976, the Joint Orthodox- Anglican Commission,
while it also wished to see the filioque expunged from the Anglican liturgical
Creed, spoke more circumspectly about the doctrinal aspect of the question.
In fact the joint statement here confines itself to pointing out that the Creed
should confess in biblical terms the eternal procession of the Spirit from the
Father. Nonetheless, while not levelling any formal charge of error against
the filioque, it is stated that the biblical passages which associate the Son
with the Father in a relationship with the Spirit apply only to the temporal
mission of the Spirit. This is tantamount, however, to denying any scriptural
warrant for the Latin tradition, although in the Bonn conversations of 1875
the Anglican partner had insisted on safeguarding this tradition.
We seem therefore to be witnessing in a sense the reversal of the position
which prevailed at the Council of Florence in 1439. Then, the equivalence
of the 8i* Yiou to th q filioque was canonized by the Decree of Union without
any reciprocal concession; in other words, while the Greeks recognized the
Latin pneumatology, their own was not acknowledged. In the official dia-
logue today, it is the turn of the western partners of the Orthodox Church
to subscribe to Photian monopatrism without any reciprocal concession. In
that case, can we speak of a genuine ecumenical dialogue here? Is this not
rather one more makeshift agreement, reflecting this time a reversal of the
old distribution of forces which now places Orthodoxy in a theologically
superior position over against a West suffering from a sense of guilt at its
former complacency? In any case, the resurgence of an inflexible anti-fili-
oquism is hardly likely to facilitate the forthcoming official conversations
with the Roman Catholic Church. The latter could not abandon its own
tradition without repudiating itself.
Towards an ecumenical agreement 71
The neo-Photian theses
I The most probable explanation of this doctrinal aKpt6€ia in contemporary
Orthodoxy is the evident influence of a Photian and Palamitic revival in
various theological and spiritual circles during the past thirty years, exem-
plified especially in the neo-patristic synthesis of a Vladimir Lossky. The
I pneumatological theses of this school may be summarized in the following
two points. The procession of the Spirit from the Father alone is a dogmatic
truth based on John 15:26 and on the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and
confirmed by the patristic principle that, within the Trinity, the Father
represents the unique source, principle and cause of the hypostatic proces-
sions. Consequently, the participation of the Son does not apply to the
constitutive CKTropewts of the Spirit though certainly to the economy and
temporal mission of the Spirit and possibly also to the eternal radiation and
outpouring of divine energies distinct from the divine essence and its
hypostases.
These theses are not novel. Their current success, however, is due mainly
I to the way in which the Losskian school has been able to incorporate them
within the framework of a radical opposition - both structural and existential
in character - between the Greek and the Latin theologies, in much the
same way as the “Slavophile” thinkers of the nineteenth century had spoken
of the spiritual pre-eminence of the Orthodox East in creating a profound
inner unity in love analogous to the trinitarian sobornost , in contrast to the
Latin and Germanic West with its inability to reconcile the imposed unity
of Roman Catholicism with the individualist freedom of Protestantism.
The argument is that divergent attitudes and intellectual assumptions in
the two sectors of Christendom have led to the development of the ancient
common trinitarian tradition into two incompatible syntheses and that west-
ern theology has emerged from this development with characteristic dis-
figurement. Latin triadology is first of all essentialist: it has stressed the
essence in God to the detriment of the persons, which are reduced to the
fluid category of “relations”, so much so, in fact, that the Spirit, said to
proceed from the Father and the Son as from a single principle and regarded
as the mutual bond between them, has been reduced (the argument runs)
to a pure function of the divine unity. Next, Latin theology is rationalist. It
is supposed to claim to unravel the mystery of the immanent Trinity, partly
by simple inference from its economic manifestations and therefore with
scant respect for the radical apophatic mystery enveloping the essence of
God, and partly even on the basis of analogies with human psychology and
therefore with all the risk of anthropomorphic illusions. This, it is argued,
has fatal consequences for Latin ecclesiology. The subordination of charisma
72 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
to the institution, of freedom to power, of the prophetic to the legalistic, of
mysticism to scholasticism, of the laity to the clergy - are not all these the
expression in the Roman Catholic Church of precisely this inner-trinitarian
subjection of the Spirit to the Son which is implicit in Latin filioquism? And
- as the ultimate expression of this ecclesiological “christomonism” - the
subjection of synodal communion to the primacy of the papal jurisdiction?!
A question of motive
To make the filioque the master key for deciphering all the differences
between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the manner just described is to adopt
an epistemology the very seductiveness of whose logic makes it suspect right
from the start, given the complexity of history. Certainly there is some
substance in a number of the criticisms directed at the Latin tradition by the
neo-Photians and the neo-Palamites; but they sometimes prove to be so
tailored to the dictates of a system as to distort and even ignore altogether
the real intentions of Augustinian and scholastic theology. The Anselmian
axiom concerning the procession of the Spirit - tamquam ab uno principio
- far from expressing a congenital essentialism is simply an attempt to meet
the objection that acceptance of the filioque would contradict the divine
monarchy: if the two persons of the Father and the Son breathe the Spirit
in one and the same act of mutual love, the unique originating principle
undoubtedly consists in what is a supremely “interpersonal” exchange!
Nor has it been in virtue of an incorrigible rationalism that the Latin
tradition has always spontaneously sought to understand the immanent Trin-
ity in the light of the divirie economy and by reflecting on the psychology of
human understanding and pf love; for no hubris need necessarily be involved
when the human spirit, made as it is in the image of God, seeks to picture
to itself its Creator in the light of the “vestiges” imprinted in his works and
in terms of his activity in the redemptive history. On the contrary, this is the
pathway proposed to us by Scripture itself and in fact followed also by the
Greek Fathers themselves. However naive the confidence of scholastic theo-
logians in the “necessary conclusions” of their syllogisms may sometimes
seem, all of them worthy of the name remained aware, as a rule, of the
absolute freedom of the transcendent God and of the hopeless inadequacy
of every theological analogy.
It should also be emphasized that, in the Latin tradition, the trinitarian
filioque implies no ecclesiological subordination of the Spirit to Christ, still
less any “christomonism”. In view of the fact that the economy of Pentecost
could in no conceivable circumstances contradict the economy of the Incar-
nation of which it is the fulfilment - the Spirit whom Jesus sends secures the
Towards an ecumenical agreement 73
confession of him as Lord! - to play off a totally juridicized church against
a purely charismatic church can never be other than a crude caricature.
Moreover, it is in its trinitarian root itself that the falsity of the charge of
christomonism is demonstrated: the tcx^ls of the spiration of the Spirit by
the Son no more implies the subjection of the Spirit to the Son than the
generation of the Son by the Father implies any inferiority of the Son in
relation to his Father. Perhaps to a greater degree than the triadology of the
Greek Fathers, that of the Latins with its preoccupation with subordination-
ism never lost sight of the radical consubstantiality of the three persons. One
: certainly does not commit oneself to an ideology of power and domination
by conceiving of the Spirit as the expression of the mutual love of Father
ij and Son!
An empty defence
The danger of the negative approach of contemporary Orthodox neo-
Photianism to Latin pneumatology is that it may provoke an equally negative
I defensive response on the part of Catholic theologians which would land us
once more in the endless round of fruitless polemics. For example, we might
respond ad hominem by accusing the Cappadocian Fathers themselves of
trinitarian essentialism. Even for them, 6 0€os can mean the common divin-
ity, in contrast to the usage in the New Testament. They, too, could be
accused of having reduced the subsistent hypostases to their original rela-
tionships, in an unsatisfactory effort to counter Arian subordinationism,
whereas it was the Latin tradition which inaugurated an authentic trinitarian
personalism with the existential psychology of Augustine rounded off by the
ontology of Thomas Aquinas in which the hypostasis is understood as a
subsistent relationship. Then again, the charge of rationalism, too, would
probably be turned against the same Cappadocians who, over-reacting to
the Eunomian dialectics, laid themselves open to the charge of taking refuge
in an essentially agnostic apophatism forbidding in principle any inferences
from the otl to the ti of God. Having thus divorced the immanent Trinity
from the economy, the Palamites could then be said to have left themselves
with no alternative but to re-establish the connection by thinking in terms
of an eternal radiation of divine energies, somewhat on the lines of the
neo-Platonic emanations, divine energies which are really distinct from the
closed and impenetrable nucleus of the divine essence, whereas the Latin
scholastics, for all their respect for the mystery of the divine essence would
consider it nonetheless to some extent accessible to the human spirit elevated
by the grace of God or by the “light of glory”.
It need hardly be said that a defence of this kind takes just as little account
74 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
of the positive intentions of the Greek trinitarian tradition as the criticisms
it refutes fail to do justice to the real motive of the Latin triadology. Engaged
in polemics, each speaker naturally tends to absolutize his own standpoint
and to discredit the standpoint of his opponent. But ecumenical dialogue
would require that each should recognize the truth affirmed by the other
while remaining aware of his own imperfections. A balanced judgment is
difficult enough even in human affairs. When it is a matter of the mystery
of the one Triune God it becomes radically impossible, since here discursive
thought, tackling the paradox from one side or the other, as it must, inev-
itably appears to come down on one side rather than on the other. Instead
of reproaching the other spokesman for his different theological approach,
the more appropriate procedure would be to ensure that he does not neglect
the corrective supplied by the contrary affirmation. The Latins are no more
to be accused of Sabellianism because of their concern for the unity of the
divine nature than the Greeks are to be branded as tritheists because of
their primary concern for the trinity of the hypostases.
A positive context
This means that there is no more urgent theological task facing the ecu-
menical dialogue on the procession of the Spirit than the deliberate detach-
ment of the debate from its negative and polemical context. By locating the
heart of the controversy in a supposedly insuperable incompatibility between
two triadologies which is the source of all the differences between eccle-
siologies, anthropologies and spiritualities, the neo-Photians rule out any
possibility of reconciliation right from the start. But there have always been
other Orthodox theologians convinced that the difference between filioquism
and monopatrism had no appreciable influence on the doctrine and life of
the two churches. Moreover, to liberate the question of the procession of
the Holy Spirit does not mean treating it as if it were an exercise in abstract
logic, isolated from other questions in a way that would lead to dangerous
distortions of perspective; it means, rather, finding a positive context for it.
Instead of locating it at the very heart of our differences, we must replace
it within the pneumatological tradition we still share. Within this consensus
the difference will assume its true proportions.
Most of the publications stimulated on the Roman Catholic side in recent
years by the theological aggiornamento of the Second Vatican Council and
the pentecostal or charismatic revival are primarily concerned with the
ecclesiological dimension of pneumatology, including its sacramental and
liturgical aspects. Since the Spirit manifests his presence from the very first
page of Genesis (1:2) down to the very last page of Revelation (22:17), a
Towards an ecumenical agreement 15
complete outline of ecumenical pneumatology based on biblical theology
would have to embrace the entire redemptive history from the creation to
the second coming. His prophetic function among the people of the Old
Covenant would be specially emphasized by reference to the inspiration of
the scriptures as well as to the anointing of kings and priests. The present-
ation of his role in the life of Christ - principally in his conception, baptism
and resurrection - would take into account the diverse standpoints of the
synoptic gospels, of Acts, of Paul and of John. His activity as the soul of the
Church from the pentecostal mission down to the spiritualization of the
resurrection bodies would be illustrated in sacraments and ministries, in
martyrdom and monasticism, as well as in the life of Christians generally,
from the profession of faith up to and including mystical experiences. In the
ordinary way, nothing should prevent unanimity on all these things between
Catholics and Orthodox. On the economy of the Spirit there is no significant
difference between them.
It is important, moreover, to point out that the doctrinal agreement also
covers the essentials of trinitarian pneumatology. The fact is that on both
sides we confess the Spirit as the third person-hypostasis of the unique divine
nature-essence, consubstantial-6p,oovcriov with the Father and the Son. It
may seem obvious for the contemporary theologian to acknowledge the
divinity of the Holy Spirit and his personal distinction within the Trinity but
we have only to read the Fathers of the fourth century to realize afresh how
tremendously difficult it was for Orthodox pneumatology to shake itself free
not only from subordinationism but also from a certain confusion between
the Spirit, on the one hand, and his gifts, or the divine nature, or the
incarnate Logos, or the risen Christ, on the other, a confusion encouraged
by the imprecisions of Scripture.
Restored to this context of the common economic and trinitarian faith,
the question of the Son’s participation in the breathing of the Spirit by the
Father could no longer be regarded as the nodal point of contradiction
between two irreconcilable pneumatologies but, on the contrary, would be
cut down to its true dimensions as a peripheral difference within the context
of a fundamentally identical tradition.
The decrees of union
The fact remains that, historically, the doctrine of the procession of the
Holy Spirit was developed in the form of strictly dogmatic definitions. At
the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439), labelled “ecumenical” by
classic Roman Catholic theology, the Latins made recognition of the filioque
the condition of a union which was soon to be rejected by the conscience of
76 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
the Orthodox Church, since the latter continued to consider the monopatrist
formula the only adequate way of expressing the pneumatological faith.
Does not this dogmatic crystallization of the controversy constitute an in-
superable barrier to any suggestion that the question should be reopened
and reconsidered within the context of a legitimate theological pluralism?
By strictly adhering here to the decrees of the seven ecumenical councils of
the first millenium, the Orthodox Church retains the advantage of not being
bound by the dogmatic formulas of the medieval and modern West. Al-
though it has a very rich concept of tradition, conceiving this as always
integrally present to it, in practice it retains the maximum spiritual freedom
to define its faith. But on the Roman Catholic side, too, the ecclesiological
renewal of the Second Vatican Council as well as the claims of ecumenism
invite theologians to review the irrevocable judgments of previous
generations.
It was, moreover, Pope Paul VI himself who, when commemorating the
seventh centenary of the Council of Lyons, took the remarkable step of
breaking with the custom of referring to this assembly as “the fourteenth
ecumenical council” and henceforth designating it “the sixth of the general
synods held in the West”. Drawing attention to the all-important role of
political and cultural factors, the Pope went so far as to question the vol-
untary character of a union which he recognized as having been imposed on
the basis of formulas produced by theologians who were ill-informed about
eastern realities (A AS 66, 620-625). The same criteria are certainly less
applicable to the Council of Florence, though here again what was in practice
imposed upon the Greeks was also a definition in the Latin and scholastic
style. Moreover, while it would certainly be unrealistic to seek to challenge
the dogmatic status of the decree of a council which both parties were agreed
in acknowledging as genuinely ecumenical, it would nevertheless be anach-
ronistic to interpret this decree in terms of a “fundamental theology” de-
veloped by Roman Catholic theologians in the nineteenth century. The
pneumatological definition of the Council of Florence, unaccompanied
moreover by any anathema, rests only on a rational argument and makes no
explicit reference to any biblical or patristic authority.
But we have only to analyse the text of the decrees of these two medieval
councils to see that they in no way reject the real intention of Orthodox
monopatrism, though the latter is never expressly mentioned. The condem-
nation pronounced by the Council of Lyons is directed equally against those
who affirmed a double procession of the Spirit as against those who rejected
the flioque. It therefore does not touch those for whom the formula Ik
|i6vou toO IlaTpos would still be compatible with the Son’s participation in
Towards an ecumenical agreement 77
a spiration wholly subjected to the primary causality of the Father. As for
i the decree of the Council of Florence - lacking any trace of a formal
condemnation - this, too, is content to insist that all Christians should
; recognize filioquism as an authentic expression of the faith without thereby
denying that the Photian formula can equally be so. But the outstanding
feature of the decree is its concern to respect the Greek point of view far
more than was the case at Lyons. In fact, by reaffirming the principle
tamquam ab uno principio , it is now made quite clear that the filioque, far
from excluding, actually presupposes that the Father is seen as the unique
source and principle of all divinity, since it is wholly from him that the Son
derives his spirative power, the causal character of which is therefore not
understood in the sense of first cause, as in the ama of the Greek Fathers.
Thus, although at the two “union councils” the Latins may have persuaded
the Orthodox to acknowledge filioquism without formally conceding their
counter position, nevertheless the radical intention of the monarchy of the
Father, which constitutes the profound truth of Photian monopatrism, is
clearly respected, objectively speaking, in the decrees of these councils.
Back to the Fathers
Neither of the two parties is prevented, therefore, from reopening the
dialogue on the procession of the Holy Spirit in a strictly ecumenical per-
j spective, i.e. by reference to an axis which is central enough to sustain the
clash of partial viewpoints without resort to relativism or syncretism. This
common axis of reference would lead Orthodox and Catholics back to the
period prior to the schism when the trinitarian theologies of the Greek East
and the Latin West still coexisted peacefully in their pluriformity. Neither
of the two churches would any longer require the other to accept subsequent
definitions of its own theology as a canon of faith and both of them would
I also recognize the legitimacy of the other’s distinctive theological develop-
ments. In practice, the dialogue would mean an effort on the part of each
partner to explain his own patristic tradition as understood from within, i.e.
with no attempt to subject his partner’s tradition to his own personal criteria,
but seeking rather to dig down to the deepest intentions of his Fathers in
the faith instead of sticking to florilegia of quotations, which are always open
to challenge as artificially isolated from their contexts. This is what is re-
quired of us if the two apparently conflicting pneumatologies are ever to be
seen as, in reality, complementary approaches to the one divine mystery
with all the considerable enrichment this discovery will bring with it.
Another advantage which this projected return to the Fathers would bring
with it would be to recall theology to a greater discretion. The fact is that
78 Spirit of God , Spirit of Christ
those who helped to develop the pneumatological dogma in the latter half
of the fourth century - Athanasius and Didymus, Basil and the two Gre-
gories, Ambrose and Damasus - were content to define the procession of
the Spirit negatively, rejecting the dilemma on the horns of which the
Pneumatomachi sought to impale those who refused either to regard the
Spirit as a creature or to speak of him as engendered as a brother of the
Son. To this the Fathers sometimes added that they regarded the positive
meaning of the procession as an unfathomable mystery, with an apophatic
wisdom which conspicuously relativizes the frail scaffolding of contradictory
arguments accumulated since then on both sides in order to explain this
mystery.
Nor should we lose sight of the fact that the patristic tradition itself was
already employing current philosophical terms and arguments which were
equally lacking in any absolute theological value. When they adopted such
concepts as “principle” or “cause” as rational tools for their arguments, the
Fathers did so doubtless with the intention of preserving the central thrust
of the monotheist trinitarian faith against Arianism and Sabellianism and
certainly with no notion of developing a sacrosanct metaphysic or, to use
their own expression, of “physiologizing the divine”. However indispensable
philosophical categories may be for formulating the Christian revelation, we
must never lose sight of their fundamental inadequacy to express the mystery
and of the need to correct them with the dimension of transcendence. There
is no guarantee, for example, that the Aristotelian concept of efficient
causality explains the inner divine relationships more satisfactorily than
another kind, which deny rational conceptualization, of reciprocally and
simultaneously triple relations, which would nonetheless not be restricted to
one simple mode of manifestation. It would be much wiser, therefore, to try
to keep the ecumenical dialogue on the procession of the Holy Spirit at the
level of the strictly theological affirmations of the Fathers.
Two complementary traditions
Having said that, it turns out that the history of the filioque and its
equivalents - sometimes older, like ab utroque - is far more difficult to
reconstruct than is sometimes claimed. This is the case even if we ignore the
semantic difference between the Latin verb procedere and the Greek word
eKTropeuecrficu, as well as possible nuances in the use of such prepositions as
ex, ab, and de, which are equally demonstrable as against the Greek ck.
Confining ourselves strictly to the Son’s participation in the procession of
the Spirit, the starting point will be the formula a Patre per Filium, attested
from Tertullian {Prax 4) onwards. Tertullian used this phrase to show that
Towards an ecumenical agreement 79
the “economy” does not encroach on the “monarchy”; he conceived of the
trinitarian processions as, so to speak, a biological diffusion of the divine
! substance. We find the same formula used by Hilary on the eve of the
“Macedonian” controversy, only this time in a context where the purpose
I is to prove that the Spirit of God is not a creature ( Trin . 12:55-57). But the
per Filium naturally aroused suspicions of subordinationism once the Pneu-
matomachi, basing their arguments on John 1:3, among other texts, had
presented the Spirit as the first of the beings created by the Word. This may
j be why Ambrose in his refutation of the Arians of Illyria preferred to express
the unity of nature by saying: procedit a Patre et a Filio ( Spir . 1:11, 120).
But that filioquism should have become really traditional in the West can
only be attributed to Augustine, the pupil of Ambrose and doctor of the
West.
It should be stressed, however, that the most ancient witnesses to this
tradition represent no more than one way among others of affirming the
consubstantial divinity of the third person of the Trinity, which Latin the-
ology and the Latin liturgy loved to express, moreover, in another way by
calling the Holy Spirit the bond or unity of the Trinity. In the fourth and
fifth centuries the Johannine writings are still expounded without a term like
procedere (John 15:26) being given the technical meaning which was sub-
sequently assigned to it. In a Victricius of Rouen, the origin is felt to be
akin to the Trepixwpticris, both terms being intended simply to show the
common possession of the same substance (PL 20:446): in other words, at
the end of the fourth century, the precise character of the procession is still
not envisaged. So too in the Tome of Damasus, which in a sense constitutes
the western counterpart to the Creed of Constantinople (381), the de Patre
appears to be a pure synonym for de divina substantia , intended simply to
I prove that the Spirit is Deum verum (anath. 16).
Nor was the consubstantial dimension of the trinitarian processions un-
familiar to the tradition of the Cappadocian Fathers which is reflected in the
Creed of 381. But this tradition inclined to see here the origination of the
three hypostases with their incommunicable properties; deeply attached to
the principle of the monarchy and causality of the Father, it had used John
15:26 to define the eternal eKTropeixns of the Spirit. There is no justification
for claiming these Fathers as filioquists, therefore, and the texts cited by
Latin controversialists in this sense on the basis of ancient manuscripts of
the writings of Basil or Gregory of Nyssa certainly seem, in the last analysis,
to have been interpolations. But it is worth observing that Augustine himself
fully respected the “monarchy” in regarding the Spirit as proceeding prin-
cipaliter from the Father, where the adverb doubtless does not mean “chie-
80 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
fly” but as from the unique principle ( Trin . 15:17, 29; In Jn. 99:8). It was
doubtless in order not to yield any ground to pneumatomachian subordi-
nationism that the Cappadocian Fathers avoided giving too much promi-
nence to the Son’s participation in the eternal procession of the Spirit.
But Epiphanius and, above all, the school of Alexandria, who insisted as
did the Latins on the unity of the divine nature and in speaking of the
procession did not limit their terminology to that of John 15:26, gave greater
emphasis to the fact that the Spirit of the Father and the Son is Trap’
d|jupoT€pa)v (Epiph. Pan. 74:7-8), i.e. ouctwoSws d|jupoiv (Cyril Ador. 1).
To limit these and other affirmations of the same tenor to the mission and
to leave out the eternal source and essential roots of the economy in the
immanent Trinity would be tantamount to foisting on the standpoint of the
fourth and fifth century Fathers a dichotomy still alien to them. Moreover,
the ancient formula “from the Father through the Son” is not only typical
of the Latin tradition but is also found in abundance in the Greek Fathers,
including John of Damascus and it was this formula which was regularly
proposed as a basis of agreement in the course of attempts at union or
dialogue. It should still be capable of reconciling Orthodox and Catholics
for while it expresses the Son’s participation in the procession of the Spirit,
which is what the filioque intends but is obscured in the Photian formula ck
povou tov IIotTpos, at the same time it strictly safeguards the monarchy of
the Father which the filioque may appear to jeopardize but which is the real
concern of monopatrism. In other words, the most faithful interpretation of
the common patristic tradition could be to apply the Greek Ik to the relation
of the Spirit to the Father and to interpret the Latin ex in the filioque in the
sense of perlhia.
The Creed of Constantinople
But surely the silence of the Creed of Constantinople about any role of
the Son in the procession of the Spirit is tantamount to a deliberate denial
of any such role on the part of the authors of this basic document of
Orthodoxy? The truth is that, since the Acts of the Second Ecumenical
Council have not been preserved, the precise circumstances in which the
Creed came to be drawn up remain a matter of speculation. Nevertheless,
although some scholars go so far as to detach the Constantinopolitanum
completely from the Council of 381, it is generally accepted today that the
ancient tradition is correct which attributes the completion of the pneuma-
tological article of the Creed of Nicea to the Fathers of Constantinople -
Gregory Nazianzus was the second president of the Council and Gregory of
Nyssa, whose brother Basil of Caesarea had been dead for more than two
Towards an ecumenical agreement 81
years, was present at it. It is also assumed that its extant wording represents
! the revision of an already Nicenized local baptismal creed. The Fathers of
• 381, while confessing a doctrine radically opposed to the “Macedonian”
i theses, would seem nevertheless to have avoided any explicit enunciation of
the divinity and consubstantiality of the Spirit in order to make it easier for
i the Pneumatomachi of the Hellespont at some time to rally to Orthodoxy,
as the Emperor Theodosius hoped they would. This then is the probable
context in which we should read the clause about the procession of the Spirit
from the Father.
In the implicit quotation of John 15:26 in this clause, the preposition irapd
in the gospel has been changed into €k. This suggests that the point of the
statement relates henceforth not so much to the Pentecostal mission of the
( Spirit as to its procession of origin, although the participle eKTropeuoixevov
; has not been put into the aorist tense like the yevvriDevTa which indicates
the eternal generation of the Son. The eKiropevopevov is probably not
completely lacking in an “economic” connotation, therefore, any more than
i are the immediately preceding adjectives “Lord” and “Life giver”, in which
the reference to creation and redemption is semantically implicit even though
| they point directly to the divinity of the Spirit.
That having been said, the statement of the procession certainly appears
to express an intention absolutely parallel to that of the Nicene Fathers in
the second article of their Creed: to state that the Son is begotten of the
Father was tantamount to excluding his creation from nothing; to state that
the Spirit proceeds from the Father was likewise to signify that he is not a
creature. It would therefore be wrong to see here the adoption of a position
. concerning the precise mode of the eKTropewis rather than a simple confes-
sion of the divinity of the Spirit, synonymous in this respect to all the other
clauses of the pneumatological article. In other words, the Creed transcends
the quarrel between monopatrism and filioquism. The controversy between
the Greeks and the Latins on that point broke out only when each of the
two parties began to claim support from the Creed for its own position.
The silence of the Fathers of Constantinople is not to be explained,
therefore, by their supposed opposition to the idea that the Son participated
| in some way or other in the spiration of the Spirit. This silence is all the
| more striking, however, when we consider that it would have been much
| more in accord with the customary formulas of the Cappadocian Fathers
had they combined with John 15:26 another traditional biblical text such as
John 16:14 or Romans 8:9, affirming that the Spirit receives from the Son
or referring to the Spirit as the “Spirit of Christ”. The reserve evident in the
Creed should probably be explained, therefore, as a deliberate precautionary
82 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
measure motivated by a given circumstance, namely, the claim of the Pneu-
matomachi that the Spirit was created by the Son. By omitting any reference
at all to a relationship between the Spirit and the Son, the Fathers of 381
forestalled the illegitimate inference that the Spirit is a creature and subor-
dinate to the Son, an inference which seemed unambiguously excluded by
the cKTropewis according to John 15:26, interpreteted analogously to the
generation of the Son in the second article. The dogma of the Constantin-
opolitanum is therefore no obstacle to unity.
The addition to the Creed
Yet even supposing agreement were reached on the procession of the
Holy Spirit along the lines of the Greek and Latin Fathers before the schism,
this would still leave untouched the original offence which was always central
to the Orthodox repudiation of th e fiiioque. What canonical or moral right
had the Roman Catholic Church to introduce an additional clause into the
liturgical Creed of the common faith which a decree of the Ecumenical
Council of Ephesus had forbidden anyone to alter, and to do so unilaterally,
i.e. without a new ecumenical council? The Catholic party, persuaded that
the supreme magisterium can and should explain the faith confessed in the
Creed, if necessary by introducing into this Creed the dogma which it has
defined, could not have sufficiently realized the seriousness of what the
Orthodox regarded as a breach of the visible sign of the doctrinal unity of
all Christians with one another and of the unity of the Church today with
the Church of the Fathers.
On the basis of advances in the historical study of the creeds during the
past century, we are in a better position to appreciate the question discussed
at length at the Council of Ferrara in 1438, namely, whether the prohibition
of the Third Ecumenical Council included any other exposition of the faith,
as the Greeks understood it to mean, or only any exposition of another faith,
as the Latins understood it to mean. We now know that the Fathers of the
fourth and fifth centuries used to cite as the faith of Nicea formulas which
verbally were sometimes very remote from the actual text of the Nicaenum
- which itself, unlike the Constantinopolitanum, was never baptismal or
eucharistic - provided that they reflected the anti-Arian dogma defined at
Nicea. This patristic freedom of formulation - as well as that of the manu-
script tradition of the two great Creeds (the clause “God (born) of God” in
the Latin liturgical text is absent in the Greek) - undoubtedly reflects the
diverse customs of the local churches. The fact remains that all the Ecu-
menical Councils from Ephesus onwards demonstrated their respect for the
Towards an ecumenical agreement 83
Creed of the first two Ecumenical Councils by refraining from inserting into
j it the dogmatic formulas of their definitions.
There are still vast areas of obscurity in the history of the insertion of the
filioque into the Constantinopolitanum. The view that the addition, first
i attested in Spain, was intended to combat the Arianism of the Visigoths is
still repeated though it remains no more than a hypothesis lacking any
i convincing proof. The more likely explanation is that the filioque was simply
transferred from ancient local symbols into that of Constantinople when this
latter symbol was adopted instead. The fact that a filioquist formula first
appears in the Toledan symbols is generally explained today as having been
due to the influence of an anti-Priscillian letter of Pope Leo the Great (ep.
15:1) in which already in 447 the words ab utroque occur as the most normal
thing in the world, though there is still no need to trace the filioque back to
a source in the pre-Ephesian fides romana. Thus the insertion of the filioque
in the Creed of Constantinople need initially have meant no more than a
natural adaptation to the local tradition, reflecting doubtless a regrettable
ignorance of the conciliar tradition but certainly no subjective mistrust of
the Eastern Orthodox Church. On the contrary, special respect was shown
to this church by the liturgical reception of its Creed since for Rome this
meant sacrificing its own old “apostolic” creed.
Unfortunately, however, the addition of the, filioque became the stone of
stumbling and one of the badges of the schism. Orthodoxy has indeed
sometimes been disposed to concede to the Latins by the economy of love
what canonical dKpCSeia forbad them to concede, while Rome for its part
» never - except at the darkest moments - went so far as to make union
conditional on the explication of the Greek creed. But is it desirable that a
mutual recognition of the two traditions on the procession of the Holy Spirit
i should leave written into the very text of the profession of faith the bone of
: contention which provoked the scandal of division, even if this difference is
a thousand years old? Many theologians on both sides admit that the pneu-
matological article of the Creed of Constantinople is imperfect and some
i have proposed that a common reformulation should be undertaken. But
i could any future Ecumenical Council assume the responsibility of revising
: the venerable text by a new dogmatic “addition”? So long as the Constan-
tinopolitanum remains what it is for each of the two churches, it would be
better, therefore, after theological agreement has been achieved, to restore
it in its original form so that Catholics and Orthodox may in future be able
to proclaim it together. It would therefore be up to the Roman Catholic
Church to suppress the filioque of the Creed, as a token of reconciliation
84 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
with the Orthodox Church but without signifying by this renunciation any
repudiation of its own tradition.
Conclusion
By way of conclusion to these few thoughts in an ecumenical context, it
may be permissible to place the desired agreement on the procession of the
Spirit and on the addition of the filioque to the Creed under the twofold
patronage of a convergent mutual recognition which dates back to the era
when the misunderstanding which would spark off the schism first began to
appear. About the year 650, Maximus the Confessor, when reminded by his
compatriots that they rejected the filioque , explained to them in the termi-
nology of their common eastern tradition that the “Romans” did not thereby
intend any denial that the Father was the unique first cause (ama) in the
Trinity but meant it in the Greek sense of the procession ('irpoievai) through
the Son, in order to show the divine consubstantiality (to cruva<J>es rrj<; oucrias
- PG 91, 136). In 810, when Charlemagne’s envoys demanded that the
filioque be inserted in the Creed of Constantinople, Pope Leo III roundly
refused to do so, although asserting that he was profoundly convinced of
the orthodoxy of the Latin tradition (PL 102, 971-976). These two conver-
gent examples have lost nothing of their freshness and immediacy, pointing
as they do to what is perhaps the only way to an honourable agreement.
The Roman Catholic Church will be able to restore the Creed and acknow-
ledge the radical truth to monopatrism once the Orthodox Church likewise
recognizes the authenticity of the filioque understood in the sense of the
traditional 5i Y iou.
THE FILIOQUE CLAUSE:
AN ANGLICAN APPROACH
DONALD M. ALLCHIN
I. The Moscow Statement of 1976
The history of Anglican-Orthodox relationships is a long and slowly mov-
ing one. Contacts were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
and became more frequent in the nineteenth century. In the last fifty years
official exchanges have been constant. The appointment of an international
Joint Doctrinal Commission in 1931 marked a new stage on the way. Al-
though the meeting of 1931 was not followed up, the idea of such a Com-
mission was not forgotten. In the 1960’s a new and more representative
Commission was set up, and held its first full meeting in Oxford in 1973.
After two years of further intensive work the full Commission met again in
Moscow in 1976 and issued an agreed statement which covered the subjects
of “The Knowledge of God”, “The Inspiration and Authority of Holy
Scripture”, “Scripture and Tradition”, “The Authority of the Councils,”
“The Church as the Eucharistic Community” and “The Invocation of the
Holy Spirit in the Eucharist”. Not the least important section of the agreed
statement is that which deals with the filioque clause, which follows directly
on the treatment of “The Authority of the Councils”. It reads as follows:
“19. The question of the filioque is in the first instance a question of the
content of the Creed, i.e. the summary of the articles of faith which are to
be confessed by all. In the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (commonly
called the Nicene Creed) of 381, the words ‘proceeding from the Father’ are
an assertion of the divine origin and nature of the Holy Spirit, parallel to
the assertion of the divine origin and nature of the Son contained in the
words ‘begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father’. The word €k-
j
• Donald M. Allchin (Anglican) is Residentiary Canon of Canterbury Cathedral,
a member of the International Anglican/Orthodox Doctrinal Commission, and Chair-
man of the Council of the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius.
86 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
7Topevo|jL€vov (proceeding), as used in the Creed, denotes the incomprehen-
sible mode of the Spirit’s origin from the Father, employing the language of
Scripture (John 15:26). It asserts that the Spirit comes from the Father in a
manner which is not that of generation.
“20. The question of the origin of the Holy Spirit is to be distinguished
from that of his mission to the world. It is with reference to the mission of
the Spirit that we are to understand the biblical texts which speak both of
the Father (John 14:26) and of the Son (John 15:26) as sending (pempein)
the Holy Spirit.
“21. The Anglican members therefore agree that: (a) because the original
form of the Creed referred to the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father;
( b ) because the filioque clause was introduced into this Creed without the
authority of an ecumenical council and without due regard for Catholic
assent; and (c) because this Creed constitutes the public confession of faith
by the people of God in the eucharist, the filioque clause should not be
included in the Creed.” 1
Two years later in the Lambeth Conference of 1978, the bishops of the
Anglican Communion agreed to commend the work of the International
Commission, to receive the Report of Moscow 1976, and to recommend
“that all member churches of the Anglican Communion should consider
omitting the filioque from the Nicene Creed, and that the Anglican-Orthodox
Joint Doctrinal Commission through the Anglican Consultative Council
should assist them in presenting the theological issues to their appropriate
synodical bodies and should be responsible for any necessary consultation
with other churches of the western tradition”.2
What was the context of this agreement? Something of the nature of the
discussion at the Moscow meeting can be seen in the account written by the
Orthodox theological secretary, Father Kallistos Ware, which makes con-
siderable use of quotations from the minutes. On the one side it becomes
clear that the Anglicans did not see this proposal as a mere gesture of
ecumenical good-will. Anglicans have long recognized that in this matter
their position is anomalous, at least as regards the position of the clause in
the Creed. The view commonly held is that the filioque clause owes its
1 Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: the Moscow Statement Agreed by the Anglican-Ortho-
dox Joint Doctrinal Commission 1976, ed. K. Ware and C. Davey, pp. 87-88. This
book contains a useful history of the dialogue written by C. Davey, London, SPCK,
1977, pp. 4-37.
2 The Report of the Lambeth Conference, 1978, London, CIO Publishing, 1978,
pp. 51-2. This recommendation was endorsed and reaffirmed at the meeting of the
Anglican Consultative Council in London, Ontario, May 1979.
An Anglican approach 87
position in the Creed to a decision of the papacy, over-riding an earlier
conciliar decision. But Anglicans in general do not recognize such an au-
thority in the papacy. The members of the Commission, however, wanted
to go further than this. It was not only a question of the form of the Creed
of 381, it was also a question of the intention of those who framed it. Hence
the carefully phrased formulation of paragraph 19, about the parallel be-
tween the begetting of the Son and the proceeding of the Spirit; hence the
first of the reasons given for the recommendation made to their churches by
the Anglican members of the Commission that the filioque clause should no
longer be included in the Creed. Here is a question of faith which lies behind
the subsequent development of divergent theologies.
But as the minutes of the meeting also make abundantly evident, there
: was no intention on the part of the Anglican members of the Commission
to make any condemnation of the filioque doctrine as such, still less of the
whole Latin tradition of trinitarian teaching of which it is a part. Indeed one
member of the Commission proposed that an addition to the statement
should be made in terms such as these. “We make this proposal without
prejudice to the teaching of Augustine on the double procession of the Holy
| Spirit, which is found in other Anglican formularies, and without implying
any condemnation of the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and other churches
which use the filioque ” 3 This proposal was not taken up, but I think it is
! clear that even those Anglican theologians who feel seriously dissatisfied
with the filioque tradition of trinitarian theology would not wish either to
condemn or outlaw it. Both traditions of trinitarian theology contain ele-
ments of value. They bring out complementary aspects of the truth. Before
so great a mystery a sane theological pluralism is not undesirable.
It is in this light that the remarks in paragraph 20 are to be understood.
The distinction made may be elementary, but it is certainly vital, and relates
directly to the preceding paragraph’s account of the intention of the Creed
of 381. It also marks a place where there is not disagreement between East
and West; the Spirit is sent by the Son. But the reference to the Johannine
texts was certainly not meant, at least by the Anglicans present, to foreclose
the large questions of New Testament exegesis which lie behind the elab-
oration and development of differing formulations of trinitarian doctrine.
All these questions were left open, and the hope was expressed that they
i might be further explored in future discussion. As one of the senior Ortho-
88 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
dox members of the Commission (Archbishop Basil Krivocheine) remarked,
the document “did not condemn th e filioque doctrine”.4
II. The seventeenth century discussion
Concern about the doctrine of the filioque is not something new in post-
Reformation Anglicanism. At the time of the Reformation there was anxiety
as to whether it could be proved with sufficient clarity from the scriptures,
since the most obvious proof text, John 15:26, seemed to work against this.
Thus for instance, we find the reformer, Roger Hutchinson arguing “that he
proceedeth also of Christ, these St Paul’s words be a sufficient record. ‘If
any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his.’ For he cannot be
Christ’s Spirit, not proceeding of him . . . Further our Saviour Christ, to
teach that the Holy Spirit proceedeth from him equally as he doth from the
Father, breathed on his disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Ghost,’ and
‘Lo, I send the promise of my Father upon you.’ ” 5 Here as we see there
is no distinction being made between a temporal mission and an eternal
procession of the Spirit, a failure to distinguish which seems common at this
period.
In the seventeenth century, however, other difficulties about the filioque
come to the fore. In the gradual articulation of an Anglican theological
position over against Rome on one side and Geneva on the other, appeal
to the authority of the Fathers played an increasing role; and in controversy
with Rome appeal was also made to the existence and testimony of the
contemporary eastern churches. It was clear that the question of the filioque
could not be evaded. If we were to appeal to the witness of the East, it must
be proved that the East was not in error on a fundamental point of faith.
Where was the right in this question, in terms of history and of theology?
It must be said straight away that the great majority of Anglican theo-
logians in this classical period of Anglican theology followed in the western
tradition of trinitarian theology. As typical we may cite a work written
towards the end of the century, and primarily concerned to defend the
doctrine of the Trinity against Socinian attacks. In his Vindication of the
Doctrine of the Trinity, William Sherlock writes on this subject in relation
to the text of the Athanasian Creed: “But the difficulty of this is with
reference to the dispute between the Greek and Latin Church about the
filioque, or the Spirit’s proceeding from the Father and from the Son. The
reason why the Latin Church insists on this is to preserve the unity and
4 Ibid., p. 67.
5 The Works of Roger Hutchinson, Parker Society Edition, Oxford, 1842, pp. 126-7.
An Anglican approach 89
subordination of the Divine Persons to each other. The Son is united and
subordinate to the Father, as begotten by him; the Holy Ghost is united and
subordinate to the Father and Son, as proceeding both from the Father and
from the Son. But if the Holy Spirit proceedeth only from the Father, not
from the Son, there would be no union and subordination between the Son
and the Spirit, and yet the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son as well as of the
Father, and that these Three Persons be one God, it is necessary that there
should be an union of Persons as well as one Nature. But then the Greek
Church confessed that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father by the Son,
though not from the Son; and by and from are such niceties that we confess
we understand not the manner of this Procession of the Holy Spirit to be
such as ought to have made a dispute, much less a schism, between the two
churches. The Greek Church acknowledges the distinction of Persons, and
their unity and subordination; that there is one Father, not three Fathers,
one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts; that the
Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped; which is all this
Creed [sc. the Athanasian] requires as necessary to salvation.” 6 Even al-
lowing for the controversial context in which this book was written, we see
here a clear reiteration of the western tradition, and a desire, which is
characteristic of a large part of Anglican writing since the sixteenth century,
not to multiply those articles of faith which are considered necessary to
salvation.
But, of course, we can find more detailed and penetrating discussions than
that of William Sherlock. Pre-eminent among them is the treatment of the
subject by John Pearson (Bishop of Chester, 1673-86) in his Commentary
on the Creed , for more than two centuries a standard work used in the
training of the clergy. In the course of his exposition of this article, Pearson
declares: “Our sixth and last assertion (sufficient to manifest the nature of
the Holy Ghost, as he is the Spirit of God) teacheth the Spirit to be a Person
proceeding from the Father and the Son . . . Now this procession of the
Spirit, in reference to the Father is delivered expressly, in relation to the
Son is contained virtually, in the scriptures.” And there follows a lengthy
discussion of the New Testament texts to support this assertion. “From
whence it came to pass in the primitive times, that the Latin Fathers taught
expressly the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, because
by good consequences they did collect so much from those passages of the
scriptures which we have used to prove that truth. And the Greek Fathers,
6 W. Sherlock, A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, 1690, pp. 16f., quoted in
Anglicanism, ed. P. E. More and F. L. Cross, pp. 277-8.
90 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
though they stuck more closely to the phrase and language of the scripture,
saying: that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father, and not saying, that he
proceedeth from the Son; yet they acknowledge under another Scripture
expression the same thing which the Latins understand by procession, viz.
that the Spirit is of or from the Son, as he is of or from the Father; and
therefore usually when they said, he proceedeth from the Father , they also
added, he received of the Son”
Pearson continues with a brief account of the development of the dispute
between Greeks and Latins, supported by extremely ample footnotes, and
concludes as follows: “Now although the addition of the words to the formal
Creed without the consent and against the protestation of the Oriental
Church, be not justifiable; yet that which was added is nevertheless a certain
truth, and may be so used in that Creed by them who believe the same to
be a truth; so long as they pretend it not to be a definition of that Council,
but an addition or explication inserted, and condemn not those who, out of
a greater respect to such synodical determinations, will admit of no such
insertion, nor speak any other language than the scriptures and their Fathers
spake.” Thus in the body of his text Pearson, who is clearly convinced of
the truth of the doctrine, maintains, though with qualifications, the rightness
of maintaining its expression in the Creed. When we turn to the last of his
footnotes on this passage we find a slightly different shade of meaning. In
the preface to the reader, Pearson explains that he has purposely kept all
material demanding a knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew out of the
body of the text, so as to make his work accessible to the less learned.
Writing, as he was, during the period of the Commonwealth when the use
of the Book of Common Prayer , and hence the liturgical recitation of the
Creed, was forbidden, he was particularly anxious not to raise doubts about
the authority of its text as known and received. In his notes, however, he
does not hesitate to take a more critical view. Here he concludes: “Thus did
the Oriental Church accuse the Occidental for adding filioque to the Creed,
contrary to a General Council, which had prohibited all additions, and that
without the least pretence of the authority of another council; and so the
schism between the Latin and Greek Church began and was continued,
never to be ended until those words ck tou Ylou, or filioque , are taken out
of the Creed. The one relying upon the truth of the doctrine contained in
those words, and the authority of the Pope to alter anything; the other
denying or suspecting the truth of the doctrine, and being very zealous for
the authority of the ancient councils. This therefore is much to be lamented,
that the Greeks should not acknowledge the truth which was acknowledged
by their ancestors, in the substance of it; and that the Latins should force
An Anglican approach 91
>: the Greeks to make an addition to the Creed, without as great an authority
, as hath prohibited it, and to use that language in the expression of this
(I doctrine which never was used by any of the Greek Fathers.” * 7 Here there
is surely implied a suggestion that the Latin Church should be prepared to
ii remove the clause from the Creed, for the sake of a unity which otherwise
|| cannot be restored, particularly if the Greeks are willing to acknowledge
j| “the substance” of the truth which it seeks to express. And if this is the case
ii for the Latin Church, how much more for the English Church which does
(I not recognize the authority of the Pope to order such matters independently
I of a council?
Pearson was not the only Anglican writer of this time to see that there
were two sides of the question. In a book written in 1664, A Rational
Account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion , Edward Stillingfleet, later
Bishop of Worcester, begins with a chapter entitled “The Defence of the
Greek Church”, in which he argues that whatever defects and errors it may
contain, the Greek Church remains a true church, which is not guilty of
heresy on any fundamental article of faith. On the question of th e filioque
he states a case against the West, adding: “For you may see the Greeks
want not great plausibleness of reason on their side, as well as the authority
of Scripture and Council, plain for them, but not so against them.” 8
; Twenty-five years later in the upheaval caused by the dethronement of James
II and the introduction of William III, these theological discussions suddenly
touched on practical politics, and Stillingfleet was intimately involved in a
proposal to remove the filioque clause from the Nicene Creed, and to make
a declaration about the Athanasian Creed making it clear that the condem-
natory clauses relate “only to those who obstinately deny the Christian
i faith”.
This proposal formed part of a much more general proposition for a
1 revision of the Book of Common Prayer , intended to make possible the
inclusion of the main bodies of Protestant dissenters within the Church of
'! England. It is striking that in a move designed primarily to meet the problems
of Independents and Presbyterians, the Eastern Orthodox should also have
been considered. Timothy Fawcett, in a recent study of the scheme of The
(i Liturgy of Comprehension, 1689 , shows that it was Stillingfleet and Gilbert
Burnet (Bishop of Salisbury) who were particularly concerned about the
text of the Creed. He illuminates the background to the hand-written note
il 7 J. Pearson, An Exposition of the Creed, ed. E. Burton, London, Bell, 1857,
pp. 492-6.
8 E. Stillingfleet, Complete Works, Oxford, 1844, p. 53.
92 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
in the copy of the prayer book used by the Commission which adds after the
relevant words in the Creed: “It is humbly submitted to Convocation wheth-
er a note ought here to be added with relation to the Greek Church, in
order to our maintaining Catholic Communion.” 9 For reasons of a political
nature, all these plans came to nothing at that time, and no revision of the
liturgical texts took place. Nonetheless it had been seriously envisaged.
III. Developments in the nineteenth century
The renewed interest in patristic theology and the increased concern for
the eastern churches which followed on the Oxford movement of 1833,
might have been expected to bring new attention to the filioque question in
nineteenth century Anglican theology. But in fact it seems that it was only
amongst those who had a quite special interest in Eastern Orthodoxy, no-
tably William Palmer of Magdalen College, and J. M. Neale, that this was
the case. In his published works on the history of the eastern Church, Neale
merely repeats the judgment of John Pearson on the question of the filioque.
In his private correspondence of the same time, he notes: “I wished to seem
to pronounce no judgment, but to leave the reader to form his own ... I
am convinced with Palmer that the Latin doctrine, if consistently carried
out, would become heresy, and that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from
the Son at all, except by way of Temporal Mission, and then not according
to his Divinity, but only according to his operations. However, of course,
I don’t say all this in the book.” 10 In an unsigned article in The Christian
Remembrancer for October 1864, almost certainly written by Neale, while
it is argued that for pastoral reasons it would not be possible to remove the
filioque from the Creed, a proposal is put forward that the Church of
England might perhaps make a declaration that in retaining the clause in
the Creed, “we by no means assert that the Eternal Procession of the Holy
Ghost from the Father and the Son is an article of faith; and nothing of
necessity is to be held as implied in the additional clause except the temporal
mission of the same Holy Ghost from the said Son”.
J. M. Neale died in 1866. It is interesting to speculate what part he might
have played in the discussions on the future of Anglican-Orthodox relations,
which took place in England in 1870, during the visit of Archbishop Alex-
ander Lycargus of Syros and Tinos, and on the more substantial controversy
which followed the Bonn Conferences of 1874 and 1875. As it was, the
9 The Liturgy of Comprehension 1689, London, Alcain Club Series, 1973, p. 104.
10 Letters of J. M. Neale, ed. by his daughter, M. S. Lawson, London, Longmans,
Green & Co., 1910, p. 131.
An Anglican approach 93
proposals made at Bonn in 1875 were strongly contested by E. B. Pusey,
who was adamant in his defence of the Latin tradition. In one of his last
writings published in 1876 he criticized the Bonn proposals as making im-
proper concession to the Greek point of view.11 Pusey’s personal authority
in the Church of England at this time carried very great weight. Nevertheless
I in 1888, at the Lambeth Conference of that year which first adopted the
Lambeth Quadrilateral as the Anglican basis for negotiations towards unity
and in which, of course, the Nicene Creed is specifically mentioned, the
question of the revision of the English text of the Creed was proposed by
! the Committee on Authoritative Standards of Doctrine and Worship. This
Committee concluded: “In relation to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, while
we believe that there is no fundamental diversity of faith between the
j churches of the East and the West [here there is a reference in a footnote
j to the proposals of the Bonn Conference in 1875] we recognize the historical
* fact that the clause filioque makes no part of the Nicene Symbol as set forth
; by the authority of the undivided Church. We are of the opinion that, as
opportunity arises, it would be well to revise the English version of the
Nicene Creed and of the Quicunque Vult.” 12 This proposal was not, how-
ever, followed up.
In our own century, the question has naturally continued to feature in all
official Anglican-Orthodox dialogue, and particularly in the meeting of the
Joint Doctrinal Commission of 1931. Here reference was made back to the
: terms of the Bonn Agreement of 1875, and the Anglican delegates made
appeal to the theology of St John of Damascus, and seem to have hoped
that the formula “through the Son” would form an acceptable point of
meeting between the two sides. Comparing the discussion of 1931 with that
of 1976, it appears that in the more recent case a clearer distinction was
made between the level of faith as expressed in the text of the Creed, and
the level of theological explication as expressed in the two contrasting, but
I possibly complementary traditions of trinitarian teaching.
IV. Contemporary considerations
If we come to ask what is the state of Anglican theological opinion on the
; subject at the present time, we should have first to recognize that immensely
varied positions are taken. In a period when theologians question the foun-
dations of traditional Christology and trinitarian theology, it is clear that this
11 See E. B. Pusey, On the Clause “And the Son ” in regard to the Eastern Church and
the Bonn Conference: a Letter to the Rev. H. P. Liddon, D.D., Oxford, 1876.
I 12 The Five Lambeth Conferences, London, SPCK, 1920, p. 172.
94 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
particular issue will appear to many as somewhat trivial. To others, and they
perhaps a majority, the variations of teaching as between Latin and Greek
traditions will seem wholly acceptable divergences within a general unity of
faith. Here we are faced with great mysteries. Let us be tentative and humble
in our approach to them; let us hear what is to be said on both sides.
At the other extreme there are those, few in number but not without
weight, who have found themselves in agreement with those Orthodox
theologians who have seen in the teaching of the filioque one of the primary
sources not only of the schism between East and West, but also of the ills
of western Christendom. Notable among them was the late Dr D. J. Chitty,
who maintained this position with historical learning and acute theological
intuition. A more widely held position, and one which was represented
amongst the Anglican members of the Commission, would see the question
of the filioque as a symptom rather than a cause of an underlying difference
between East and West about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. While uncon-
vinced by the logical neatness of the former position which seems to involve
the over-simplifying of large and highly complex theological and historical
issues, those who hold this view would point to the widely expressed con-
viction in the West at the present time that something has gone seriously
wrong with our theology of the Holy Spirit. They would also point to the
fact that many of the controversies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
about the doctrine of redemption, or the doctrine of the Church and the
sacraments, seem to have been carried on with curiously little reference to
the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is a striking fact that at the present time,
if we take the instance of the eucharist, western revisions of the eucharistic
rite have almost always tended to make the action of the Holy Spirit in the
sacrament more clearly evident. In some Reformation texts it was scarcely
mentioned. What is to be seen in the revisions of the texts is also to be seen
in the consensus statements on eucharistic doctrine, where it has often been
a new awareness of the role of the Spirit in the eucharistic action which has
helped towards the resolution of old problems about the nature of the
presence or the nature of the sacrifice. What is true of the eucharist would,
I believe, also be true of the doctrine of the Church as a whole, since the
Church needs to be seen as the communion of the Holy Spirit no less than
the Body of Christ. Here are areas where we have much to learn from the
Orthodox tradition, and could recognize much truth in Vladimir Lossky’s
insistence on the reciprocity of the action of Christ and the Spirit in the
Church.
But the question of the relationship of the second to third person of the
Trinity has wider implications. Has not the technical language of “subordi-
An Anglican approach 95
nation” led to unfortunate and unintended consequences? One of the most
acute theological minds in the eighteenth century Methodist revival, Ann
Griffiths, confessed that while she had thought of the Father and the Son as
co-equal, she had thought of the Holy Spirit “as a functionary subordinate
to them”.13 She saw this as an error striking at the very root of Christian
life.
But this error has surely been widespread and has had a variety of conse-
quences. In the life of the Church, where the person and work of the Holy
Spirit are little regarded or understood, it seems as though the inner and the
outer, the subjective and the objective, the personal and the corporate, the
spiritual and the material, too easily fall apart and come into conflict with
one another. The life of the Church will be read in terms of a constant
struggle between the group and the individual. In the worship of the Church,
no less than in its faith, either the objective, given structures will be em-
phasized at the expense of what is inner and personal, or the subjective
elements will be stressed to the detriment of what is common and received.
It becomes increasingly difficult to see how thinking and feeling, how lucidity
and enthusiasm are to be held together and coordinated.
For it seems as if this point of doctrine touches our understanding of the
nature of man and his relationship to God. The vision of an inherent
inter-relationship between man and God, expressed in the eastern tradition
by terms such as “Godmanhood” or “theocentric humanism”, tends to be
lost. God is more and more banished into a transcendent realm, or is
understood simply as the ground of man’s being, his deepest subjectivity.
Man is more and more understood not in relationship with God, but in
isolation from him or in opposition to him. The thought and experience of
man as constantly transcending himself into God, finding himself by losing
himself in encounter with God and with his neighbour, becomes obscured.
A more balanced doctrine of God which expressed anew both the distinction
between the persons and their inherent inter-relationship would do much to
restore a more balanced, richer understanding of man, in whom Word and
Spirit work together in mutual harmony and support. It would help us to
see more of what is meant by man’s creation in God’s image and likeness.
These are some of the issues which an exploration of this subject raises,
and which are of urgent significance for the present development of the
whole Christian tradition. The study of this question can be the occasion for
a creative reappropriation of the content of our faith in God as Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. This possibility is coming to be more widely seen. It is
13 A. M. Allchin, Ann Griffiths, Cardiff, Writers of Wales Series, 1976, p. 49.
96 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
noteworthy that in May 1979 the Anglican Consultative Council linked its
recommendation about the filioque clause with a plea for a reconsideration
of the centrality of the Church’s faith in God as Trinity. Here are questions
where Christian East and West have much to gain from one another, not
least in learning to find a new language to speak of the divine mystery, a
language at once humble and yet decisive, clear and yet imaginative. And
here our very handling of this ancient controversy can be of help to us, as
we learn to enter into different points of view and trace the development of
differing traditions of teaching and reflection. To adapt the words of Bishop
Stillingfleet in 1664, “there being confessed to be depths on both sides, it
might teach us a little more modesty in handling these matters and much
more charity to those who differ about them”. Only in a deepening sense
of amazement and wonder before the generosity of the divine being shall
we together be able to receive the gift to acknowledge the glory of the
eternal Trinity, the majesty of the divine unity.
5
• I am deeply indebted to my friend Canon Edward Every for his kindness in allowing
me to see the text of his detailed study of this subject now in preparation.
THE FILIOQUE IN THE OLD CATHOLIC
CHURCHES: THE CHIEF PHASES
OF THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
AND CHURCH PRONOUNCEMENTS
KURT STALDER
I. The Bonn Reunion Conferences of 1874-75
When the Catholics excommunicated by the Bishop of Rome for rejecting
the 1870 papal dogmas found themselves obliged to organize independently
in order to perpetuate the true Catholic Church of the early centuries, they
also committed themselves to work to recover the visible unity of the Church.
This goal had been a serious concern of some of their leaders even before
1870. The establishment of the Old Catholic Church with this commitment
provided them with the ecclesiastical basis and opportunity for taking the
initiative towards achieving it. In the so-called “Bonn Reunion Conferences”
of 1874-75, their initiative accomplished the first step. In addition to Old
Catholic theologians, various members of Evangelical, Anglican and some
other churches took part, and so did some members of Orthodox churches.
This was why the Old Catholic theologians had to concern themselves with
the filioque question, not merely as a matter of historical research as hitherto,
but in personal encounter, and this at a time when most Old Catholic
churches were still only in process of constituting themselves.
From the start the authoritative Old Catholic theologians were agreed
that the filioque had been inserted in the ecumenical Creed in the West, in
a canonically illegitimate way. Only gradually, however, at once in some
places, much later elsewhere, did the Old Catholic churches draw official
consequences from that agreement, by dropping the filioque from the Credo
in the mass.
Insight into the course of events which had led to the insertion of the
filioque into the Creed did not bring merely polemic impulses but promoted
an intensification of ecclesiological reflection, above all on the need for
• Kurt Stalder, Old Catholic, is professor of New Testament at the Theological
Faculty of Bern, Switzerland.
98 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
certain questions to be made the subject of ecumenical conciliar discussion
and decision by the whole Church, and also on the relation between the
responsibility of the local church and of the Church as a whole. This in turn
contributed to the formation of the ecclesial conception of a local church
with an episcopal and synodal constitution.
As regards the actual dogmatic question of th e filioque, the discussions of
the 1875 Reunion Conferences at Bonn produced agreement on two sets of
theses, termed “articles” or “paragraphs”. First the following four articles
were adopted:
“1. We agree in accepting the ecumenical creeds and the dogmatic deci-
sions of the ancient undivided Church.
2. We agree in recognizing that the addition of the filioque to the Creed
was not made in an ecclesiastically legitimate way.
3. We all profess the presentation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as
given by the Fathers of the undivided Church.
4. We reject any conception and any mode of expression which involves
the assumption of two principles or dpxai or amai in the Trinity.”
At a later session the following six “paragraphs” were adopted on the
procession of the Holy Spirit and the inner-trinitarian relations of Father,
Son and Spirit. Their mode of expression was based on the writings of St
John Damascene1.
“We accept the teaching of St John of Damascus on the Holy Spirit as
expressed in the following paragraphs, in the sense of the teaching of the
ancient undivided Church.
“1. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father (4k too IlaTpos) as the
beginning (apxT)), the cause (ama), the source (mqyT]) of the Godhead ( De
recta sententia n. 1, Contra Manich. n. 4).
2. The Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son (4k tou Yiov), because
in the Godhead there is but one beginning (apxTi), one cause (ama) through
which all that is in the Godhead is produced ( De fide orthodoxa, i, 8: 4k too
Yiou 84 to IIveufjLa ov Xeyofiev, Ilveup-a 84 Yiov 6vofia£o|xev: “We do not
say that the Spirit is out of the Son, but we do designate him the Spirit of
the Son”).
3. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son ( De fide
orthodoxa i, 12: to 84 IJveoixa to “Ayiov 4Ktf)avTopLKT] tou Kpvcjnou rqs
1 Report of the Reunion Conference at Bonn, 10-16 August 1875, pp. 103-104, quoted
by C. B. Moss, The Old Catholic Movement, its Origins and History, London, 1948,
p. 269. As, however, the official text does not translate the Greek but paraphrases it,
an actual translation has been added, in double quotes in each case.
Old Catholic churches: theological reflection! church pronouncements 99
OcoTTjTos Suvapxs tctO FlaTpos, ck llaTpos p.ev 8l’ Ylou eKTTopeuop,evT|: “the
Holy Spirit, the power of the Father revealing that which is hidden of his
Godhead, which proceeds out of the Father through the Son”). Ibid.: Ylou
8e IIveup,a oux’ ws *6 auTou aXX’ tos 8i’ aurou ck tou llaTpos €K7ropeuop.evov:
“Spirit of the Son, not that he proceeds from him, but because he proceeds
through him from the Father”. Contra Manich. n. 5: 8ia tou Xoyou auTou e £
auTou to riveujxa aurou €K7Topeuop.evov: “his Spirit, which proceeds out of
him through his Logos”. De hymno Trisag. n. 28: IIveup.a to ‘'Ayiov ck tou
llaTpos 8ia tou Ylou Kai Aoyou TTpoiov: “the Holy Spirit which proceeds
from the Father through his Son, the Logos”. Horn in sabb. s. n. 4: tovto
t1P.lv €cttl to XaTpeuop,evov . . . Ilveup-a ayLOV tou 0eou Kal llaTpos. a>s
auTou €KTropeu6p,evov, OTrcp KaC tou Ylou XeyeTaL, cas 8l auTou c{)av€poup.evov
Kai txi ktlct€l p.tTa8L86|JL€vov, aXX ouk e£ aurou exov tt]v uTTap^Lv: “this is he
who is to be worshipped by us . . . the Holy Spirit of God the Father, as he
who proceeds from him, who is also named (Spirit) of the Son, as he who
is revealed by him and is communicated to the creation, not however as he
who has his being out of him”.
4. The Holy Ghost is the image of the Son, who is the image of the
Father. ( Defl.de orthodoxa, i, 13: elkojv tou llaTpos, Kai tou Ylou to IIveup,a:
“the Son is the image of the Father, and the Spirit is that of the Son”);
proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son as the power radiating
from him, {De fide orthodoxa, i, 7: tou llaTpos Trpoepxopevov Kai ev T(p
Xoy<(> dvaTTauopevov Kai auTou owav €KcJ>avTLKT)v 8uvap.Lv: “[the Holy
Spirit] who is the power of the Father, which proceeds from him and rests
in the Logos and is his power of revelation”); ibid, i, 12: IlaTep . . . Slol Xoyou
TTpo6oX€us €K(|)ttVTopLKOu 7TV€up.aTos: “The Father . . . who through his
Logos produces the revealing Spirit”.
5. The Holy Spirit is the personal “productio” of the Father, belonging
to the Son but not from the Son, because he is the Spirit of the mouth of
the Deity, and utters the word. {De hymno Trisagion, n. 28: to Flveuixa
ewirooraTov eK'iropeup.a Kai 'irpoSXTip.a ck llaTpos |X€v, Ylou 8e, Kai p/r] e£
Ylou u>s FIveup,a aTop,aTos ffeou, Xoyov e^ayyeXTLKov: “the Spirit, the hy-
postasis, who proceeds out of the Father and is produced by him, (is) the
(Spirit) of the Son, but not out of the Son, but as the breath of his mouth
which is expressive of the Logos”).
6. The Holy Spirit forms the mediation between the Father and the Son
and is united to the Father through the Son. {De fide orthodoxa, i, 13:
p.€Orov tou dyewTiTou Kai yevv^Tou KaC 8l Ylou tw FlaTpi ouvairTop-evov:
“[the Spirit, who] links the Unbegotten with the Begotten and through the
Son is united with the Father”).”
100 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
These theses, though unofficial in character, assumed for succeeding dec-
ades the significance of a mutually recognized foundation which was re-
peatedly referred to, even though opposition to it was raised by some
Orthodox theologians.
II. The period from 1875 to 1942
Even at the first Bonn Conference the proposal was made to set up a
commission for further study of dogmatic questions. An Anglican proposal
in particular was that it should be examined whether “the Creed could
possibly be restored to its primitive form, without sacrifice of any true
doctrine which is expressed in the present western form”.2 The suggestion
was not, however, carried out. Joseph Langen did, it is true, publish two
works that derived from the conference proceedings: Die trinitarische Lehr-
differenz zwischen der abendlandischen und der morgenlandischen Kirche ”
(The Trinitarian Doctrinal Difference Between the Western and the Eastern
Church),3 in which he mainly tried to give an account of the Patristic ma-
terial, and Johannes von Damaskus (John Damascene).4 Apart from these,
however, he did not express himself any further on the subject. Nor did
Dollinger. There was then no discussion for almost two decades. It was
clear, however, that if it were to be taken up again it would primarily have
to be in conversations between Orthodox and Old Catholics.
These came about, however, only after the International Old Catholic
Congress of 1892 in Lucerne, where both Professor Friedrich and Archbish-
op Gul of Utrecht formally expressed the wish for a new step towards unity
between the Orthodox and Old Catholic churches. In that same year, or at
latest in the following year, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church
established a commission, subsequently called the “St Petersburg Commis-
sion”, to report on the state of these problems. Its first report was also
conveyed in 1894 to the International Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference,
which thereupon at its meeting in Rotterdam nominated a commission of
theologians, the so-called “Rotterdam Commission”, which was to ensure
that the studies necessary to clarify these questions were undertaken and
their findings submitted.
Unfortunately these commissions never made any personal contacts, only
in writing. At long intervals they exchanged three “Statements of Views”,
the last in 1913. The Russian Revolution put an end to the work. In these
2 Report I, 32; C. B. Moss, op. cit., p. 263.
3 Bonn, 1876.
4 Gotha, 1897.
Old Catholic churches: theological reflection! church pronouncements 101
Statements, the filioque question occupied a central position. At the same
time, which is perhaps characteristic, considerable attention was also devoted
to the question of the relation between dogma, theologoumenon and private
theological opinion.
The jointly recognized initial basis was, as already noted, the Bonn theses
quoted above. Both sides acknowledged, therefore, that the Father is the
sole dpx"n, ama, mnyfi (beginning, cause, source) of the Godhead both of
the Son and of the Spirit. However, the Rotterdam Commission also held
the view that the filioque , to the extent that it understands the Son only as
a “secondary” or “contributory cause” in the procession of the Spirit, is not
essentially different from the diet tou Ylou (“through the Son”) which is also
acknowledged by the Eastern, and moreover is not a dogma but merely a
theological opinion, which anyone may hold. The St Petersburg Commission,
on the other hand, regarded these expressions as calling in question the pia
ama (“one cause”), and therefore called for greater precision. No progress
was therefore achieved in clarifying the problem and in advancing the
discussion.
In subsequent decades the necessary conditions for resuming the inter-
rupted reflections did, however, exist, thanks to the activity of influential
theological teachers who with exceptional intensity kept alive awareness of
the fundamental importance of trinitarian questions, thanks also on occasion
to the demands of ecumenical meetings. No use was made of them, however.
III. The work of Bishop Urs Kiiry
A new stage opened with the writings of Bishop Urs Kiiry. What had
been achieved so far was indeed taken up, but also critically examined.
Above all, earlier modes of expression were not merely compared or even
played off one against another; instead, an advance was made into the heart
of the matter itself. We are thinking, for example, of his Berne Inaugural
Lecture in 1942 on “The Significance of the filioque Controversy for the
Concept of God in the Western and Eastern Church,” 5 and above all of the
final section of his article on the concluding phase of the work of the St
Petersburg and Rotterdam Commissions: “Fundamental Theological Con-
siderations on the Filioque Question”.6
5 Printed in Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift, Berne, 33, 1943, pp. 1-19.
6 Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift, 58, 1968, pp. 81-108.
102 Spirit of God , Spirit of Christ
In this latter article, Urs Kiiry examines the works of W. Bolotov7 and
reaches the following conclusions:
a) With Bulgakov he considers it as unfortunate that the tradition and
terminology of western trinitarian theology moves so much in abstractions
and, with Bolotov, he feels it is not conscious enough of the inadequacy of
its expressions. The starting point ought rather always to be, rigorously and
concretely, God’s trihypostatical aseity (102). 8 The two elements in this
criticism must be borne in mind together if their relevance is to be clear.
It follows, then, that “The terms ama (cause) for the first hypostasis and
aiTiaTal (caused) for the second and third hypostases are, as Bolotov himself
noted, unavoidable but inadequate. They are unavoidable because they
maintain the idea of the Father’s monarchy in the sense just explained,
namely that the Trinity, as act of mutual love within the divinity, is the
self-revelation of the Father in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. They are
inadequate because they mislead us into thinking of the Father as an abstract
principle” (102f.). This unfortunate fact is aggravated by unsuitable trans-
lations into Latin and German. Moreover if “these terms are questionable
even in reference to the Father’s monarchia, they are most emphatically so
if in speaking of the procession of the Holy Spirit, the Father is termed ‘first
cause’ and the Son ‘second cause’. The controversy on this point which still
preoccupied the Petersburg and Rotterdam Commissions, may be regarded
from this point of view as obsolete. There must be no talk in this abstract
way at all of ‘cause’, nor of the Father as principium non de principio , nor
of the Son as principium de principio, nor again of the Holy Spirit proceeding
from the Father principaliter . This terminology makes it impossible to tackle
the problem whether and how the Son ‘shares’ in the procession of the Holy
Spirit from the Father. The formula which the Rotterdam Commission
retained, of the Son as ‘joint cause’ or ‘secondary cause’ in the procession
of the Holy Spirit from the Father, is to be abandoned” (103).
If the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit are subsumed
under the general term of procession, and “two processions” are referred
to without distinction, the defectiveness of the abstractions is patent: “By
this subsumption the concrete distinctiveness of the coming of the Son from
the Father or of his having come from the Father, and of the issuing of the
7 “Theses on the filioque question”, Revue internationale de theologie, 1898, pp. 681—
712; and S. Bulgakov, “Capita de Trinitate”, Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift, 26,
1936, pp. 144-167, pp. 210-230, and 35, 1945, pp. 24-55.
8 The figures between brackets in this section all refer to Internationale kirchliche
Zeitschrift 58, 1968.
Old Catholic churches: theological reflection! church pronouncements 103
Holy Spirit out of the Father is blurred. In the New Testament the ‘proces-
sion’ of the Holy Spirit from the Father is expressed by a different word
(eKTropevcTai, John 15:26) from the ‘procession’ of the Son from the Father
(efjeXfidv, John 8:42). In the Vulgate, on the other hand, the word procedere
is used both times and has passed into Latin theology and come to prevail
in it. The resulting want of clarity in terminology is even worse in German
(or in English) when the procession of the Holy Spirit is said to be from the
Father which does not render exactly the term ek ‘out of ” (103f .).
Dollinger drew attention to these problems of difference in terminology
several times at the Second Reunion Conference at Bonn in 1875. According
to the Report II, 13.25.38, “the two expressions eKiropeikaftai and procedere
are not completely identical; the former says more in one respect and less
in another than the latter, and contains something that applies only to the
relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father.” Furthermore, “we admit that the
relation of the Son to the Spirit is not entirely the same as that of the Father
to the Spirit, because paternity in the wider sense, or the property of being
the source of the divine persons, does not belong to the Son, but only to the
Father. To that extent the eastern Church is justified in rejecting the pro-
cedere ab utroque or a Patre Filioque, since that Church attaches to the
eK'irop€\)ear&oa a different meaning from that of the procedere of the Latins,
namely, that of the causality that belongs to the Father alone (ixovos yap ai-
tios 6 Trarrip: the Father alone is he who causes), whereas the Latins left
out of account the difference between the action of the Father and that of
the Son in relation to the Spirit ...” We may well consider that Dollinger
indicated an important point here but did not succeed in giving full clarifi-
cation. This will only be possible if it is realized that the two “processions”
out of the Father are two fundamentally different acts, each with a special
content, and have to be expressed by the concrete terms of generation and
spiration. The difference between them must not be blurred. But it is blurred
if the two concepts are so linked by subsumption under the term “proces-
sion” that there is talk of one procession of the Holy Spirit “from” the
Father and “from” the Son.
From this point of view it must also be improper to interpret the two
abstractly conceived processiones as productiones in such a way that it is
only through them that the Son and the Holy Spirit as amaToi (those
caused) in the ontological sense “originate” out of the Father as aiTia
(cause). Consequently the idea that the Holy Spirit is a joint productio of
the Father and the Son is to be rejected. The relation in which the Holy
Spirit stands to the Father is other than that in which he stands to the Son.
The former alone is a “relation of origin” and could - in the imprecise and
104 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
abstract terminology of western theology - be interpreted in the sense of a
productio. The relation of the Holy Spirit to the Son, on the other hand, is
of a quite different kind (104f.). On the basis of the idea that the processiones
are to be understood as productiones, it is therefore one-sided and wrong
“to interpret the relations arising through the processiones exclusively as
relations of origin. The relationes originis are indeed in a certain sense the
primary, but not the only, relations within the Godhead. Certainly the
relations of the Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father are to be called
relations of origin - in the light of the idea of the trihypostatical self-
revelation of the Father in love - but not the relation in which the Son
stands to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit to the Son. With the Fathers
of the ancient Church, this relation may be described as one of ‘belonging
properly to’: the Holy Spirit belongs to the Son (lBiov)” (105).
b) As fundamental thesis for the understanding of the inner-trinitarian
relations, Urs Kiiry following Bulgakov recognizes that the “duality” of Son
and Holy Spirit as compared with the monarchia of the Father, means that
“the Son in his relation to the Father is not to be separated from the Holy
Spirit nor the Holy Spirit from the Son. Each of the hypostases manifesting
the Father depends not only from the Father but also from the correlative
hypostasis which manifests the Father. The being of the Son depends a patre
spirituque, the Holy Spirit does not proceed abstractly from the Father
alone, but through the Son or Patre filioque. The ‘and’ which western
theology allows only at one place” (102) applies in all trinitarian relations,
provided it is not understood in the sense of a causal productio or relatio
originis. In short, it can be formulated as an “axiom following from God’s
trihypostatical aseity” that “the relations within the Godhead are to be
understood throughout as threefold” (105). 9 From this, Kiiry concludes that
“we must agree with the thesis maintained by both Bolotov and Bulgakov
that both the eastern ‘from the Father alone’ and the western ‘filioque’ -
provided the thesis of the threefold character of the inner-trinitarian relations
is maintained - are admissible as free theological opinions. Both formulas
safeguard a legitimate concern, even if in an inadequate way”.
The formula “from the Father alone”, provided it is not understood in an
exclusive sense, safeguards the idea of the Father’s monarchia (though of
course the question would have to be put to Bulgakov whether the addition
9 The expression “threefold relations” or “threefold character of the relations”, which
occurs several times, appears to mean that each relation involves all three hypostases
and that such a relation is correctly described only if it is shown that and in what way
each of the three hypostases shares in it.
Old Catholic churches: theological reflection! church pronouncements 105
of “alone” can in fact be understood except in an exclusive sense). In order
to prevent the formula, which has been adopted in the Confessio orthodoxa,
being construed in the exclusive sense, Dollinger in 1875 in Bonn rightly
declared: “We can accept this statement as valid, because of the addition:
so far as the Father is beginning and source of the Godhead.” Dollinger
also declared: “If the question is framed in this way: Does the Spirit proceed
only from the Father?, the answer will be affirmative or negative according
to the sense attached to the word ‘proceed’. It will be affirmative if what is
meant is that power or activity which belongs only to the Father by which
he is the source of the Godhead and the spiration of the Spirit is wholly his
work, both that done by him as person and that effected by the Logos who
only possesses through or from the Father the power radiating or breathing
forth the Spirit . . . The reply must be negative if the formula means that
the Son is excluded from any cooperation in the production of the Spirit.”
For our part, we consider that Dollinger’s formulation that the Son must
not be excluded from any collaboration in the “production” of the Spirit is
incorrect. The point is not that the Son is involved in the “production”
( productio ) of the Spirit, but that the procession of the Holy Spirit takes
place “wapxovTos tou Yiou”, and that the existence of the Son is the
“condition” (Bolotov) or presupposition of the spiration of the Spirit by the
Father. This is pertinently and sufficiently expressed by the formula 5ia tov
Yiou (through the Son). This “ecumenical theologoumenon” is to be ac-
cepted unreservedly, as was done by the Old Catholics in Bonn in 1875 on
the basis of a catena of relevant statements from the writings of John
Damascene. On the other hand, the “from the Father alone” is only ac-
ceptable with the proviso stated above: so far as the Father is beginning and
source of the Godhead.
On the other hand, the western filioque is also admissible as a free
theological opinion so far as it is a reminder that should not be ignored of
the threefold character of the relations within the Godhead (in contrast to
the eastern “from the Father alone”). That means, however, that the filioque
must not be understood in an exclusive sense, either. As Bulgakov argued,
beside it the ex Patre Spirituque must also have its place, if the relation
expressed by the que is not thought of as a relation of origin. The Holy
Spirit does not proceed from the Son as a second principle of origin (con-
sequently Dollinger’s formulation quoted above, that the Son possesses
through or from the Father the “radiating or spirating power”, is at least
imprecise). Nor can it be said that the Holy Spirit proceeds out of the Father
and the Son as unum principium. This Augustinian 4>i\oaocj>oi3|xevov (Bol-
otov) must in fact be rejected. But the filioque is to be affirmed in that in
106 Spirit of God , Spirit of Christ
a different way from the Greek 8ia, with which it is not identical, in the
sense already explained, it presupposes the existence of the Son for the
existence of the Spirit, as its “condition”, and so maintains the threefold
character of the relations within the Godhead (105-107). And the expression
found in the proposal quoted above, section (5) ad init. , regarding the
“doctrine expressed in the present-day western form”, which would not have
to be sacrificed in any case in restoring the original form of the Creed, can
accordingly only mean for us that “the existence of the second hypostasis is
the presupposition or ‘condition’ of the existence of the third: the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father u'lrdpxovTos tou Yiou” (107).
c) In conclusion, Urs Kiiry expresses the view that “the question of the
mode of procession of the Holy Spirit out of the Father and of the partici-
pation of the Son in that procession, is certainly in need of the universally
binding dogmatic formulation which it has not yet received even to this day,
but which it could only be given by the decision of a future ecumenical
council. What we can already do now, however, until a comprehensive
consensus has been established, is to use the terms coined in an unmistakably
schismatic spirit in the course of the history of dogma, ^eorTpeirajs, that is
to say, in a way worthy of God (as the Orthodox theologian Ossinin said at
the Second Bonn Reunion Conference). That is only possible, however, if
the eastern and western theologians speak together in the spirit of the love
of God, which is what is ultimately at stake in the dogma of the Trinity ...”
(107-8).
IV. Church pronouncements on the basis of the theological position
reached through the work of Bishop Kiiry
The theological position attained in the articles of Bishop Urs Kiiry and
which met with general recognition, was given official church expression in
two pronouncements of the International Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
First in the “Declaration of the International Old Catholic Bishops’ Con-
ference on the Filioque question” of 1969-70, 10 and then in the “Doctrinal
Letter of the International Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference” addressed at
the same period (1969-70) to the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I.* 11 The
second of these devotes only seven lines to the filioque question, but in
contrast to the first document they expressly emphasize that “we firmly
reject in fact any theological doctrine which makes the Son a joint cause of
the Spirit”. For the rest, the second document maintains the same line as
10 Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift, 61, 1971, p. 69f.
11 Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift, 61, 1971, pp. 65-68.
Old Catholic churches : theological reflection! church pronouncements 107
the first; the sentence quoted is obviously merely intended as clarification.
We shall consequently deal only with the first, the Declaration. Although
this is even shorter, it deals exclusively with the filioque question, and
constitutes the official elucidation of a question which had previously been
left in suspense. It is not, however, a theological statement addressed to all
and sundry, but a document addressed to an actual partner in discussion by
whom it particularly wishes to be understood because it deals with a question
that concerns them both.
The introduction recalls that the addition of the filioque to the original
text of the Creed was made at a time of estrangement between the eastern
and western Church, and has occasioned manifold controversies that are still
not wholly resolved. It confirms that the way the filioque was inserted in the
ecumenical profession of faith is judged by the Old Catholic churches to
have been uncanonical, and for that reason the addition in question had
been removed from the only Creed they admit.
As regards the dogmatic question of the filioque, the following statement
is made: “Holy Scripture teaches us on the question of the eternal procession
of the Holy Spirit that the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father (John
15:26). The Council of Constantinople in 381 included this teaching of the
word of God into the Creed and stated that the Holy Spirit proceeds from
the Father. The Old Catholic Church has always accepted this teaching of
the ecumenical council as its own and attributes the highest degree of
dogmatic authority to it.
“Furthermore we maintain that in the most Holy Trinity there is only one
principle and source, namely the Father. We affirm the formulation of the
eastern Church that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, if it is
added, so far as the Father is the ground and source of the Godhead. Further
thought about the relation of the Son as the second person of the Holy
Trinity to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit must remain within the
limits set by the trinitarian dogma of the ancient Church.”
V. The beginning of the “dialogue of faith” between the Old Catholic
Churches and the Orthodox Church
On the basis of these official pronouncements, the “dialogue of faith” w'as
opened between the Orthodox and the Old Catholic churches, to examine
whether the presumed agreement in faith could in fact be actually verified.
Obviously this examination had to extend also to the problems connected
with the filioque. The theological position which the Old Catholic delegation
had arrived at during the preparatory stage is characterized by the following:
How the procession of the Spirit is distinguished from the generation of
108 Spirit of God , Spirit of Christ
the Son is incomprehensible. The fact that there is such a distinction is
revealed in the sending of the Spirit by the Son. This temporal mission must
be distinguished from the eternal procession. That does not mean, however,
that God in his revelation in time is other than the eternally self-subsistent.
For even in time the Spirit is not sent by the Son in the same way as by the
Father; the Son sends him from the Father (John 15:26) and the Father
sends him in the name of the Son (John 14:26). It can indeed be said that
the Spirit is sent by the Father and by the Son, but the more precise
expression is: by the Father through the Son. And thus even the different
manner of the temporal mission reveals the Father as sole beginning (that
is, his “monarchia”). The relevant sections from the Letter and the Filioque
Declaration of the International Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference are also
quoted.
The joint texts of the Mixed Orthodox-Old Catholic Dialogue Commission
then affirms that according to the testimony of the New Testament and the
doctrine of the ancient Church, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father,
the source and beginning of the Godhead. Then a distinction is drawn
between this procession solely from the Father (the words “as far as the
Father is ground and source of the Godhead” contained in the Old Catholic
Bishops’ Conference Filioque Declaration are not appended to this state-
ment, but are presupposed to it in meaning) and the temporal mission of
the Spirit by the Son which can also be termed a procession from the Father
and from the Son. On the one side, therefore, the eternal relation of the
origin is mentioned, on the other the temporal mission. Nothing is said,
either positively or negatively, about eternal relations which are not relations '
of origin. But since the relations in the temporal mission correspond not
only to the eternal relations of origin but also to the other eternal relations,
the silence of the text about the latter leaves the impression that eternal
relations and temporal mission do not stand in any proper connection. That
is, of course, unsatisfactory but it is simply the inevitable consequence of
the fact noted by Kiiry that “the question of the mode of procession from
the Father and of the participation of the Son in that procession has not yet
received any universally binding dogmatic formulation and to that extent
must remain open . . .”.12 In a text of this kind, therefore, the “only from
the Father” could be stated only in regard to the eternal relation of origin,
and the “through the Son” and perhaps also “and from the Son” only in
regard to the temporal mission; the important pertinent question of the
eternal relations which are not relations of origin had to remain open. To
12 Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift, 58, 1968, p. 107.
Old Catholic churches: theological reflection! church pronouncements 109
avoid misunderstanding it is, however, important to note that it is not so
much an open question between Old Catholic and Orthodox theology, as in
Orthodox theology itself.
In conclusion we recall Bishop Urs Kiiry’s view that conversations held in
a spirit of love between eastern and western theologians with a view to a
future ecumenical council should seek to clarify the question of the mode of
procession of the Spirit from the Father and that of the participation of the
Son in that procession. We should like to take up this suggestion, widen it,
and if possible even reinforce it. For some considerable time now it has been
remarked, not without reason, that the reality and presence of the Holy
Spirit is constantly either not appreciated enough or almost not at all, and
that this affects the thought and action of the churches and of individual
Christians. On occasion we even come across ways of behaviour and argu-
ment which show that people can have at the back of their minds, if only
unconsciously, the assumption that the Holy Spirit is in some way less than
the Son. The question arises whether it is completely unreasonable to fear
that aberrations of that kind may find support in th e filioque in the Creed,
though quite contrary to its intention. But precisely for that reason and
because it leaves many questions open, the form of the Creed without the
filioque, which we regard as the ecumenical one and advocate ourselves,
does not seem to us to meet all requirements. An extension of the ecumenical
Creed does not indeed seem to us the most urgent of tasks. On the other
hand we do think it a fundamental ecumenical task to reach a theological
consensus first of all on the controversial question of the procession of the
Spirit, but also on the generation of the Son and the inner-trinitarian rela-
tions which are not relations of origin. It would also not have to leave out
of account, either, the essential connection of all these questions with the
Church’s self-understanding and practice and the relation between God and
world.
THE FILIOQUE IN RECENT REFORMED THEOLOGY
ALASDAIR HERON
This must of necessity be a brief and highly selective paper - much more
so than its title might seem to imply. It cannot pretend to offer a compre-
hensive survey of the handling of the filioque question in, let us say, the
Reformed theology of the twentieth century, let alone touch on all the
various issues which the question has been seen by Reformed theologians
to involve. My aim is the much more modest one of sketching in bare outline
some of the broad approaches to the matter which can be found in Reformed
thinking. I hope this may be of some value in indicating the range of
strategies which have been and are currently being employed - strategies
which of course have analogies and parallels in other traditions as well.
That there is indeed a good variety of attitudes to the filioque within the
Reformed churches is only to be expected. Even among the Eastern Ortho-
dox theologians, who are on the whole united in a certain dislike of the
filioque clause, there are views differing considerably in detail, as Fr Bob-
rinskoy’s paper* 1 well shows. The deep antipathy of Vladimir Lossky and his
school to the filioque (and to the other features of western theology which
they associate with it) is not shared to the same degree by all, though it is
the outlook which has been most forcibly drawn to the attention of the West
in recent decades. In the West in general - and the Reformed family is no
exception - the spectrum of opinion is even wider, running as it does all the
way from committed subscription alike to the clause and to the theology it
expresses, through varying degrees of qualified enthusiasm, to outright re-
jection of both.
• Alasdair Heron (Reformed) is lecturer in systematic theology at the University of
Edinburgh, Scotland.
1 Cf. page 133 of this volume.
The filioque in recent Reformed theology 111
1. Committed subscription
Many Reformed theologians today would, like many of their Protestant,
Anglican, or Roman Catholic counterparts, strongly defend the theology of
the filioque. Some would support it chiefly by appeal to the arguments
t hammered out in the medieval controversy with the East - especially by
Anselm in the De Processione Spiritus Sancti and by Aquinas in the Summa
1 Theologica I, qu. 36, art. 2-4 - and underlying the statements of the Councils
of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439). Others, while not necessarily binding
themselves so firmly to that particular line of theological development, would
! look still further back and regard the matter as having been settled by the
! Council of Toledo in 589, or indeed by Augustine’s explanation that the
Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, albeit principaliter
i from the Father (De Trinitate XV. xvii, 29). 2 Others again, while not feeling
i it incumbent upon them to explore these venerable records in any detail,
i would be satisfied by the fact that the Reformers in the sixteenth century do
not appear to have had any serious doubts about the filioque , and that
Reformed orthodoxy subsequently accepted it without demur. So, for ex-
ample, the Westminster Confession , §2 (iii), in what is virtually a paraphrase
of the Quicunque vult , is content to affirm as a matter of course; “The
Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally
begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father
and the Son.” 3
The outstanding Reformed advocate of the filioque in the last generation
was none other than Karl Barth. In his discussion,4 he gave a powerful
restatement of what was essentially the Anselmian position. To it he added
his own characteristic emphasis, insisting that the filioque is a barrier block-
ing the road to any kind of access to the Father otherwise than through
Jesus Christ, and hinting broadly that what he regarded as the wilder effu-
2 So, for example, Louis Berkhof: “And the long drawn dispute about the question,
whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or also from the Son, was
finally settled by the Synod of Toledo in 589 by adding the word ‘filioque’ to the Latin
! version of the Constantinopolitan Creed ...” Systematic Theology, London, Banner
of Truth Trust, 1958, p. 96, my italics.
3 The relevant statement in the Quicunque vult (the “Athanasian Creed”, so-called)
runs: “The Father is from none, not made nor created nor begotten. The Son is from
the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the
Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding.” J. N. D.
Kelly, The Athanasian Creed , London, A. & C. Black, 1964, p. 19. On the acceptance
of this creed by the Reformers, see Kelly, op. cit., pp. 48-9.
* Church Dogmatics 1/1, §12, 2.3, second English edition, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark,
i 1975, pp. 473-87.
112 Spirit of God , Spirit of Christ
sions of some modern Russian theologians might conceivably be connected
with their non-subscription to it.5
However one may assess Barth’s particular arguments, his energetic def-
ence of the filioque is a significant element in the present situation in Re-
formed thinking. It also serves to underline the fact that adherence to the
doctrine is by no means always simply the product of mere convention or
arbitrary antiquarianism. Whatever may be said for or against the way in
which the filioque theology was developed and defined, it has bequeathed
a complex and cohesive structure of dogmatic argument which has been and
can still be marshalled in its support. Indeed, within the theological horizon
of an Anselm, an Aquinas, or indeed a Barth, the filioque appears not only
defensible but actually required in order fully to articulate the bond between
the Son and the Holy Spirit, and through it, the integrity of the Trinity. This
strand in Reformed thought can by no means be ignored. If the tradition in
which it stands and on which it builds is no longer to be upheld, good
reasons for departing from it will need to be found if its adherents are to be
persuaded.
2. Criticism and rejection
At the other end of the scale, some Reformed theologians would be
willing to abandon the filioque altogether, for any of several reasons:
a) First of all it must be said that not a few theologians - and the great
majority of members of Reformed churches - would be likely not so much
to reject the filioque as to be totally uninterested in the whole question. This
has nothing to do with the objections of the Eastern Orthodox churches to
the doctrine, but simply with the fact that it has no significant place in their
own perspective. Those who belong to churches which make little or no use
of the Nicene Creed - and its regular or frequent use is exceptional rather
than normative in most Reformed churches - are only rarely likely to
encounter the topic at all; and, when they do, are commonly inclined to
look upon it as an abstruse theological curiosity about which one need not
overly trouble oneself. Whatever theological judgments one might feel
tempted to make about such a situation, it is a factor which must be reckoned
with in any assessment of the contemporary ecumenical developments. A
willingness to jettison the filioque which rested on nothing more than a
sublime indifference to the whole matter would scarcely constitute a genuine
step towards rapprochement with the East!
b) A more consciously theological dissatisfaction with the filioque is felt
5 Ibid., p. 481.
The filioque in recent Reformed theology 113
by some who sense that it sits only uneasily within the framework of trini-
| tarian doctrine, quite apart from the question of the eastern objections to
it. A prominent Reformed critic along these lines has been George S.
Hendry, whose critical dialogue with Barth’s statement of the matter led
( him to the conclusion that the filioque is an inadequate solution to a genuine
! problem.6 Hendry’s concern was not primarily to reach an accommodation
with the East, but rather to analyse and evaluate the internal logic of the
western understanding of the Trinity as sketched out by Augustine. Clearly,
I however, reassessments of this kind could also lead towards a reshaping of
western thought in a pattern more congenial to the East.
c) Finally, some Reformed theologians have, in common with some rep-
; resentatives of other western traditions, found much food for thought in the
j sustained critique offered by Lossky and other Orthodox thinkers of a whole
range of distortions and imbalances which they claim to detect in western
theology and ecclesiology, and which they believe to be connected with the
filioque. Among the charges itemized against it, we may note especially the
following:
In the doctrine of the Trinity , a tendency towards monistic, indeed Sabel-
lian, thinking, in which the distinct hypostases of the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are dissolved into an (effectively undifferentiated) “Godhead”, with
the consequent displacement of a trinitarian by a Unitarian view of God
! himself - a displacement which can indeed be detected in much western
theology and piety right down to the present day.
In relation to christology, a subordination of the Holy Spirit to the person
of Jesus Christ which tends towards a “depersonalizing” of the Spirit, a
reduction of him to a mere “power” flowing from Christ, and so loses sight
of his sovereign freedom and initiative as the Spirit who, like the Word, is
one of what Irenaeus called “the two hands of God”. No longer does he
“blow where he will”; rather, “it goes where it is sent”.
In soteriology, a similar downgrading of the Holy Spirit, enfeebling the
sense of his creative and restoring energy, his activity in the incarnation, life
and resurrection of Jesus, and his work as the divine restorer of the cosmos.
Salvation is thus narrowed down to the event of the cross, seen as standing
in total isolation, and interpreted simply as a sacrifice, a punishment or an
6 The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, London, SCM Press, 1965, pp. 45-52. For a
critique of both Barth and Hendry, see Alasdair Heron, “ ‘Who Proceedeth from the
Father and the Son’: the Problem of the Filioque", Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol.
24, 1971, pp. 149-66.
114 Spirit of God , Spirit of Christ
example, and to the “benefits” flowing from it, and “christomonism” ob-
scures the action of the whole Trinity in the work of redemption.
In ecclesiology , an unbalanced emphasis on the “objective” rather than
the “subjective”, on the “given” rather than on the “yet to be received”,
on established and settled authority, whether of Church or of Bible, rather
than on creative freedom in the Spirit, on the past rather than the future,
and even on rational understanding, focused upon the Word made flesh,
rather than upon personal engagement in the living pilgrimage of faith, hope
and love in the power of the transforming Spirit. This imbalance, it is further
argued, provokes its natural reaction in the opposite direction: hence arises
the excessive subjectivism of much western Christianity, especially in Prot-
estantism generally. Thus th & filioque effectively runs out into an ecclesiaque
or an homineque, each equally, though in different ways, symptomatic of
the lack of an adequate pneumatology.7
While few if any Reformed theologians have been willing simply to accept
this indictment and to plead guilty on all counts, some have felt that there
is at least a measure of truth in these charges against the West. This is not
necessarily to concede that the filioque as such is the root of the problem,
much less that the surrender of the filioque would resolve all these other
matters. It is, however, to admit the possibility that the filioque is in some
way bound up with wider divergences between East and West; and with
that, to concede that the western approach is not the only possible or correct
one, and that it may indeed benefit by learning from the eastern. It is
difficult to estimate how widespread at present is this attitude in the family
of Reformed churches, for by and large the contemporary Reformed outlook
is still consciously western and Augustinian, and burdened by a long history
of western feelings of superiority to the Greek East. But a more open
ecumenical outlook has certainly begun to develop in modern times, en-
couraged both by increasing contact with Orthodox theologians and churches
and by a certain growth of fresh interest in the theology of the Greek Fathers
7 This last point is in fact made by T. F. Torrance in Theology in Reconstruction,
London, SCM Press, 1965, p. 231. But he is drawing out “with a little exaggeration”
(ibid.) a line of thought suggested by the eastern criticism of western theology, though
he does not make the connexion in exactly the same fashion as I am here suggesting.
His thesis is not that the filioque leads on to an ecclesiaque or an homineque, but
rather that these run directly counter to its real intention, which has been obscured
by the influence of other factors in western thought. This I believe to be true; but the
negative outworkings of misapplications of the filioque are also part of the total story
- as indeed his own argument most effectively demonstrates. So I trust I may be
forgiven for giving his expressions a slightly different twist!
The filioque in recent Reformed theology 115
- not to mention a new critical awareness of what has been aptly called the
“Latin captivity” of western theology.8
This new approach is to be found particularly in the work of Thomas F.
Torrance.9 He believes that much of the eastern criticism of western theology
is justified and also that the unilateral insertion of the filioque in the Creed
should be revoked. The positive intention of the filioque to assert the indis-
soluble link between the Son and the Spirit can, he argues, be safeguarded
in other ways; indeed, he holds that it is in fact maintained in the classical
eastern position, though not expressed in the western fashion. Beyond that,
however, he also sees both the classical eastern and western conceptions of
the Trinity as one-sided and liable to distortion. Their reconciliation cannot
therefore be achieved simply by attempting to combine them in a new
formula which will either simply adapt one to fit the other, or juxtapose
them in effectively unreconciled tension. The path he advocates is a return
behind and beyond the positions sketched out for the West by Augustine
and for the East by the Cappadocians to the distinctive Alexandrian line of
thought represented by Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, and Cyril. In their
presentation of the Holy Spirit as 6|jloowiov (“of the same substance”) with
the Son as well as with the Father, he detects a dynamic insight into the
Trinity which differs equally from the western filioque and from the eastern
€k p.ovou tou IlaTpos, and which, if fully exploited, could correct both in a
fresh, integrated vision of the triunity of God which will not fall neatly into
either the Cappadocian or the Augustinian pattern.
Torrance’s distinctive proposals deserve this special mention here as they
differ somewhat from those presented elsewhere in this collection. They do
admittedly make heavy demands on minds trained to run along the well-
worn paths of the traditional eastern and western approaches: given their
radical nature, it could hardly be otherwise. While it remains to be seen
whether it will be possible for his suggested programme to be widely ac-
cepted, it does rightly underline the extent to which deep rethinking by East
and West is needed if the filioque issue is to be resolved in a way that will
bring significant theological advance.
8 So e.g. Robin Boyd, India and the Latin Captivity of the Church, London, Cambridge
University Press, 1974.
9 See especially chapters 10-14 of Theology in Reconstruction, and the more recent
papers collected in his Theology in Reconciliation, London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1975.
The latter do not often address the filioque issue directly, but well illustrate his
approach to the doctrine of the Trinity through the Alexandrian theologians. They
also show how he finds the formula “through the Son” a more adequate expression
of the dynamic unity of God and of the centrality of Jesus Christ.
116 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
A rather different critical appraisal of the filioque from a Reformed stand-
point is that offered by Jurgen Moltmann. As his contribution is presented
elsewhere in this volume, it is not necessary to summarize it again here.10 It
may be observed, however, that he comes at the matter from the other side,
seeking more to balance and knit together the eastern and western concerns
by finding room for their favoured formulations, albeit in qualified senses.
Clearly, this aspect of the question also requires attention, though it may be
that a fully adequate reconciling framework can only be developed with the
help of the further explorations suggested by Torrance.
So far I have mentioned only a few individual theologians, who may,
however, be taken as representing the range of views in recent Reformed
thinking. What then of developments within the Reformed churches and in
ecumenical dialogue? The filioque has been discussed in conversations be-
tween Orthodox and Reformed churches, but no general recommendations
for its removal from the Creed have been made as a result: there is no
equivalent to the Anglican/Orthodox Moscow Statement .n It is, however,
worth recording that in 1977 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
instructed its Panel on Doctrine to review the question. The Panel’s report
to the Assembly of 1979 surveyed the history of the filioque and the main
theological issues involved in it, and concluded with the following rec-
ommendations, which the Assembly accepted:
“In the fight of what has been said, the Panel on Doctrine concludes that
the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed should be regarded as open to
revision in the interests of a better understanding between the eastern and
western churches. It does not believe that any useful purpose would be
served by unilateral action on the part of the Church of Scotland alone, nor
that a mere change in the wording of the Creed unaccompanied by wider
theological rapprochement would advance the ecumenical movement. It
suggests that a policy along the following fines would be appropriate:
“i) The Church of Scotland recognizes the historical and theological ob-
jections of the Eastern Orthodox churches to the filioque clause. While it
has a different understanding from them of the authority of ecumenical
councils, it regards it as regrettable that the insertion of the filioque should
have been brought about in a unilateral and divisive fashion, and hopes that
more universal agreement on the terms of the Creed may be reached. It
10 See p. 164 of this volume.
11 The filioque was discussed in the North American Reformed/Orthodox dialogue,
but no conclusion was reached upon it. See the report, The New Man, ed. J. Mey-
endorff and J. C. McLelland, New Brunswick, Standard Press, 1973.
The filioque in recent Reformed theology 117
also recognizes that some of the arguments traditionally used in the West to
justify the clause are of doubtful validity.
“ii) The General Assembly remits to the Inter-Church Relations Com-
mittee to seek dialogue on the question of the filioque with other churches
in East and West, in the hope that such dialogue may make it possible for
the clause to be either (a) universally accepted in an agreed sense, or (b)
admitted as a valid optional expression of proper trinitarian doctrine, or (c)
modified, removed or replaced by some other more widely acceptable
formula.
“iii) For the present the Church will continue to use the western form of
the Creed, and to affirm the procession of the Holy Spirit ‘from the Father
and the Son’. In so doing, however, it recognizes the original formulation
still used in the East as equally valid.”
These recommendations, especially the second - which is admittedly a
somewhat awkward one - were deliberately framed to leave open as many
options as possible instead of prematurely foreclosing the choice of ways
forward. This accurately reflects the character of the present situation. It is
impossible to predict with assurance what direction future dialogue may
take, or what solutions may yet be proposed. But in the Reformed tradition,
as elsewhere, there is emerging a sense that the dialogue must be entered
into, and fresh solutions looked for.
c.
OPENING A NEW DEBATE
ON THE PROCESSION OF THE SPIRIT
THE QUESTION OF THE PROCESSION
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND ITS CONNECTION
WITH THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH
HERWIG ALDENHOVEN
Introduction
That the Holy Spirit is related to the Father and the Son has hardly ever
been challenged in Christian theology. But once the question is raised of
1 the nature of this relationship, the answers begin to diverge. It is here that
the controversy over the filioque is located. Is it appropriate to affirm that
the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “ and from the Son” (filioque) or
should we say only that he proceeds from the Father? There is a tendency
in many quarters to dismiss such discussions as futile speculation. This is
understandable when we remember the extent to which, throughout the
history of doctrine in the West, the entire doctrine of the Trinity has been
1 isolated from actual experience and never seemed more than abstract specu-
lation. It is not my intention here to deal further with this attitude and the
reasons for it. My purpose is simply to show that, correctly understood, the
question of the filioque is very intimately related to the activity of God in
our human life.
The community of human beings which believes in Jesus Christ experi-
ences God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here, access to the Father can
never be direct but always only in and through the Son and the Spirit. In
what follows our constant assumption is that Son and Spirit are related to the
Father , even where this is not stated in so many words. But if our experience
of God, our encounter with the hidden Father, is direct experience of the
Son and the Spirit, the mode of this direct experience is different in each
case. For example, in the life of the community God addresses us as Son
through the words and lives of Others, whereas as Spirit he enables us to
respond to this address, to this approach, with our own lives as we should,
• Herwig Aldenhoven (Old Catholic) is professor of systematic theology at the
Theological Faculty of Bern, Switzerland.
122 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
and to constitute a community in the one Spirit. It must be pointed out here,
once for all, that this differentiation between our experience of the Son and
our experience of the Spirit cannot be taken to imply any division between
Son and Spirit. When we are addressed by the Son, this is also the work of
the Spirit, of course, since it happens in the power of the Spirit, and Christ,
too, is the basis of our response in the power of the Spirit. This fully accords
with the classical trinitarian doctrine of the 'rrepixwp'nais ( circumincessio ,
the mutual interpenetration or passing into each other of the persons of the
Trinity). But we must be careful to distinguish between those experiences
where the experience is primarily of the Son and those where it is primarily
experience of the Spirit. From the standpoint already mentioned, which is
only one of the many possible standpoints, of course, the address or ap-
proach to us is primarily God’s mode of operation as Son-Logos, and our
equipment to respond believingly and to constitute a community is primarily
God’s mode of operation as Holy Spirit. To speak of Son and Spirit is
meaningful only if this distinction is made. Moreover, only if this distinction
is made can we understand theologically even those personal human en-
counters in the rich diversity of relationships which are indispensable for
community.
The distinction between Son and Spirit, their unity notwithstanding,
emerges most clearly in the question of community. But it emerges in other
questions, too. For example, we experience God as Son and Spirit in each
case differently in knowledge of the truth and in the communication of life.
That is to say, however, that the way in which we understand the relation
of the Spirit to the Son and the Father cannot be separated from our
understanding of community, knowledge and communication of true eternal
life. What is at stake here is the unity of belief in God and the reality of life.
I. The question of the filioque
The question of the filioque is directly related not to the activity and work
of God but to the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son
within the divine Triunity. But this inner-trinitarian relationship cannot be
separated from the activity and work of the persons of the Trinity and
therefore from the life of the Church.
In itself the formula “filioque” is ambiguous .l It cannot, therefore, be
1 Historically speaking, three main uses of the filioque formula seem to me distin-
guishable: (1) the early use of the filioque-, (2) Augustine’s doctrine of the filioque-,
(3) the systematic filioque doctrine of medieval scholasticism, particularly in Anselm
of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas. In the first use, the filioque refers to the essential
unity of Father, Son and Spirit and does not form part of this present discussion. The
The procession of the Holy Spirit 123
accepted or rejected as such; the standpoint from which it is understood
must in each case be stated. But on the other hand we cannot ignore the
fact that there is not only a filioque formula but also a very specific filioque
doctrine which has become the dominating one in later western theology.
This doctrine differs from other possible interpretations mainly in the fol-
lowing points:
a) The procession of the Spirit from the Son as well as from the Father
is understood as an eternal original relationship in the strict sense, i.e. the
Spirit has his origin ( principium ) and the cause (causa) of his being not only
in the Father but also in the Son.
b) Father and Son together, therefore, are a single principle in relation to
the Spirit, just as the three divine hypostases are together one principle in
relation to created reality. The statement that the Son is joint or secondary
cause in relation to the Spirit also accords in a different way with what was
said under (a).
c) The Spirit depends, therefore, in a strictly ontological way on the Son.
The relationship is understood as an original relationship. In relationship to
the Spirit, therefore, an absolute, ontological and logical ‘ priority ’ is due to
the Son, and, correspondingly, an absolute, ontological and logical “poster-
iority” is due to the Spirit. In what follows, our quarrel will be with this
doctrine and not with the filioque formula as such.
A basic axiom for all reflection on the Trinity is that the Trinity at work
in the world is none other than the Trinity as such. Otherwise the activity of
God would not be a revelation of his truth but a delusory mirage or, to put
it another way, would not really be God’s activity. On the other hand, it
must never be forgotten that God’s reality transcends all we can know of
him. The fact that the reality of God transcends our knowledge of him does
Augustinian doctrine concerns us less than the systematic scholastic doctrine.
As far as the ambiguity of the filioque formula is concerned, it should be noted that
even so doughty an Orthodox opponent of the filioque as Vladimir Lossky left room
for the possibility of an Orthodox interpretation of the early Spanish filioque (A
limage et a la ressemblance de Dieu, Paris, 1967, p. 69).
Whether it is possible to use the formula “filioque” in the present situation without
automatically promoting or perpetuating misconceptions - if it means anything at all
- is quite another matter. With the passage of time the Old Catholic theology has
come to see more and more clearly that it is not possible and on the whole therefore,
it generally avoids even using the formula. Among western Christians, of course, the
outright rejection of the formula also leads to misunderstandings and errors. In the
present situation of the western churches, criticism of the formula at any rate prompts
reflection on the question itself, whereas an uncritical use of the formula refrains from
doing so.
124 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
not make this knowledge untrue. Yet it is only true if it is constantly aware
that it is surpassed by God’s reality. Even in his revelation , therefore, or
rather, precisely in his revelation, God shows himself to be a mystery. This
necessarily has consequences for our understanding of the Trinity. When we
speak in what follows about the apophatic character of the knowledge of
God, it is this ineffable mystery that is meant.
The issue at stake in the question of the filioque, therefore, is the eternal
inner-trinitarian relationship of the Spirit to the Father and to the Son,
which is disclosed to us in the reciprocal relationship of the activity of the
three divine hypostases in the world. But if this knowledge is to be true
knowledge of the relations within the Godhead, it must remain aware of its
apophatic character, i.e. of the mystery of God which transcends all human
knowledge.
We cannot talk of the inner-trinitarian relationships, therefore, as if we
were describing a metaphysical ontology of God, but only to the degree to
which God himself incorporates us into his inner-trinitarian life, as he does
in his saving activity, above all by incorporating us into his love, which is
the love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
II. Three examples taken from aspects of the Christian life and the life of
the Church
The activities of Father, Son and Spirit in the world can be considered
from many different angles and the mutual relationships of the hypostases
are not the same in each case. But since their relationships in these activities
are in every case rooted in their inner-trinitarian relationships, the latter can
only be rightly understood if the former are never in conflict with the inner-
trinitarian relationships in any of these different aspects.
Since it would be impossible to list all the aspects calling for consideration
here, I shall illustrate my meaning by the three examples already mentioned
which are also of great material importance. Firstly, I shall speak of the
communication of eternal life from the Father through the Son in the Holy
Spirit. Secondly, of the activity of the Son (Logos) and Spirit as the presup-
position of our knowledge. Thirdly, of the activity of the three hypostases
of the Trinity as the basis of human and ecclesial community.
A. The communication of the true divine life
Like the individual Christian, the Church lives by receiving the true life
from God. The important thing here, in the communication of eternal life,
is that this eternal life should really be given us as communion with God, as
a sharing in his life, in his glory. But this communication takes place from
The procession of the Holy Spirit 125
the Father through the Son and, in the Holy Spirit, attains its goal in the
i recipient, so to speak, directly. The divine life can thus be said to reach the
! Spirit - and therefore us - from the Father through the Son. What can be
said about the divine life, can also be said of the divine essence, the divina
I substantia - understood as the basis of the divine life. We can then speak of
! the divine essence which is from the Father through the Son in the Holy
Spirit, or of the Spirit which derives from the Father through the Son - or,
: less precisely, from the Father and the Son. But the relation between the
I Son and the Spirit in the communication of the divine life has not yet been
fully described in that statement. It has also to be noted that the activity of
the Son which makes the communication of the divine life possible, and
i indeed the being of this Son in his temporal mission as incarnate, always
; also already presupposes the activity of the Spirit. By the power of the
Spirit, the Son becomes man (Luke 1:35); he acts on earth in the power of
the Spirit, offers himself as sacrifice in the Spirit (Heb. 9:14), through the
i power of the Spirit is raised and exalted (cf. Rom. 1:4), and sends the Spirit
which he has himself received (Acts 2:33). But it would contradict all that
if an absolute ontological “priority” were to be assigned to the Son in the
inner-trinitarian relationship. Seen in this light, the filioque does not preserve
the identity of the Trinity per se with the identity of the Trinity of the salvation
history, as is so often asserted in the West, but actually dissolves this identity.
At this point, a brief glance at the argument that a logical priority of the
i Son over the Holy Spirit is implicit in the name “Father” . But an absolute
logical-ontological “ priority ” of the Son over the Spirit cannot be deduced
from the fact that the name “Father” is derived from the relationship to the
Son and that a name like “Breather” or “Producer” of the Spirit is not
usual. The Spirit does not confront us directly as a person like the Son but
is, so to speak, a hidden hypostasis. Consistently with this, he is often not
even mentioned in the New Testament along with the Father and the Son.
The hiddenness of the hypostasis of the Spirit is not in itself sufficient to
explain why the Father derives his name only from his relation to the Son
and not from his relation to the Spirit as well. But the hiddenness of the
Spirit is something quite different from an ontological-logical “posteriority”,
of course. From a purely logical standpoint, the hidden could undoubtedly
also come first.
A more complete definition of the trinitarian relationships in the com-
munication of the divine life to us would need to read something like this:
the divine life - or divine essence - comes from the Father through the Son,
on whom the Spirit who proceeds from the Father already rests from the
beginning, in the Spirit, who sees that this life or essence achieves its purpose
126 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
in us. If all we intend to assert in this statement is that the divine life of the
Father is really communicated to us through the Son in the Spirit, then of
course the relative clause qualifying the Son in this statement (i.e. “on whom
the Spirit who proceeds from the Father already rests from the beginning”)
can be omitted without altering the meaning.
In this view, which was widely held in the early centuries in both West
and East and especially in Alexandria, the focus of interest, it should be
noted, is not the question of the original ontological relationships of Father,
Son and Spirit within the Trinity but rather the real communication of the
divine life in the economy of salvation and the divine unity as the one Father
communicates his life to us in Son and Spirit. Here the Spirit must stand in
third place since it is in him that God touches us directly. But the Spirit
operates on the basis of Christ’s work, or, in other words, through the Spirit
we are touched by Christ who must therefore stand in second place. But
everything derives from the Father as origin, so the Father must take the
first place. The order (to^ls) of the trinitarian persons is not interchangeable,
therefore, not even between Son and Spirit. Even if our primary concern is
not with the question of original ontological relationships, it is surely inevi-
table, in the nature of the case, that we should speak of an original rela-
tionship (a relationship of origin) in the case of the relationship to the Father
but not in the case of the relationship between Son and Spirit. The early
western and Alexandrian statements along these lines are clearly to be
distinguished from the later fdioque doctrine.
It can safely be said that the development of the filioque doctrine in the
direction indicated above (cf page 123) was due above all to the fact that
definitions originally developed from the standpoint of the communication of
the divine essence and ourselves as the goal of this communication were
subsequently understood as comprehensive affirmations concerning the orig-
inal ontological relationships between the divine hypostases.2 But, as I have
already shown, if these statements are understood as comprehensive affir-
mations, this represents, even from the standpoint of the communication of
the divine life, an illegitimate generalization and absolutization of an orig-
inally unobjectionable simplification. But just how inappropriate and dan-
2 In his Theologie trinitaire de Tertullien, III (Paris, 1966, p. 106f.), Joseph Moingt,
SJ, has this to say about Tertullian, who influenced Latin theology so powerfully and
is often considered to be the initiator of the development of th efilioque in the West:
“Nowhere does he countenance the view that the Son himself is the principle of
divinity on the same ground and at the same time as the Father. The question raised
in ch. IV (sc. of Adversus Praxean) is ‘economic’, since it concerns the origin (status)
of the power wielded by the Son and the Spirit. The answer is that the latter admin-
The procession of the Holy Spirit 127
gerous this development is will only become crystal clear as we now go on
to consider the aspects of knowledge and community. The personal hypos-
tatic character of relationships within the Trinity does not emerge as clearly
in considering the aspect of the communication of the divine life as it does
when we consider the aspects of knowledge and, above all, of community.
B. Knowledge
Only as the truth comes to meet us in Christ , the Son of God, and as the
Holy Spirit equips us to know this truth , is there any such thing as Christian
knowledge. But only through faith in Christ do we receive the Spirit and
only through the Holy Spirit do we come to faith in Christ. For faith is
inseparable from knowledge and knowledge is only possible in the Spirit.
From the standpoint of Christian knowledge, therefore, the operation of
the Son and the operation of the Spirit presuppose each other , though it is
impossible to explain this reciprocity rationally by asserting that one side or
the other has an ultimate logical “priority”. The unity of the Son and Spirit
is in the Father who is their common ground, who operates in them, and to
the knowledge of whom their operation ultimately leads. The fact that the
Spirit is sent by the Son, for example, cannot be used as an argument to
assert an ultimate logical or ontological “priority” of the operation of the
Son over that of the Holy Spirit in Christian knowledge. For it is also a fact
that it was through the Spirit that the Son came into the world and in the
power of the Spirit that he accomplished his work. Moreover, what has been
said about the reciprocity of the operations of Son and Spirit applies not
only to Christian knowledge in the narrower sense but also, mutatis mutan-
dis, to all knowledge, inasmuch as the Logos incarnate in Jesus Christ is
none other than the creator Logos, and the Spirit sent by Christ is none
other than the creator Spirit. This is something we can only hint at here.
If we assign an absolute logical, ontological “priority” to the operation of
the Logos over against that of the Spirit in the process of knowing the truth
(and this is the inevitable consequence of the systematic filioque doctrine),
the logical outcome is an objectivistic approach to knowledge of the truth.
Among the consequences of this is a yawning gulf between such knowledge
isters a power which he receives (‘from the Father through the Son’) ... It does not
follow that he attributes an efficient role to the Son in the production of the Spirit.”
These remarks refer to the only passage where Tertullian, speaking of the Spirit, uses
the formula “from the Father through the Son” (a patre per filium). He never uses
the formula ‘filioque’ and only once the formula ‘a patre et filio ’ (Ad. Prax. VIII), but
in this context, the meaning is not “from the Father and the Son” but “as (the third
is the Spirit) after the Father and the Son”.
128 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
and modern science and philosophy , which regards any such objectivism as
untenable. This truth in particular, which certainly is ignored more often
than not even in the natural sciences except for theoretical physics, could
perhaps provide the most fruitful starting point for a fruitful encounter
between science and theology.
At a different level, objectivism of this kind, which affects not just the
realm of knowledge in the strict sense but also the whole approach to life,
is accompanied first of all by a subordination of the subject to “objective”
reality. When this reaches a certain degree, the subject rebels but, for the
most part, fails to transcend objectivism and only, so to speak, stands it on
its head, by regarding surrounding reality merely as an object to be used and
exploited.
At the ethical level, an objectivistic approach to knowledge is ac-
companied by a heteronomic ethics defined from outside. In the end the
subject rebels against this and substitutes for it an autonomous ethics, on
the basis of which faith in God (Christian or otherwise) is usually rejected.
This is not to say that the development of recent western cultural history
as briefly indicated here is to be blamed on the flioque doctrine. We are
simply pointing out the close correspondence between this doctrine and the
assumptions underlying this development. Yet even more important is that
the filioque doctrine makes it impossible to resist these trends theologically,
on the basis of a trinitarian faith in God. The only theology capable of doing
this is one which sees that the operation of the Son (Logos) and that of the
Spirit presuppose each other, while neither precedes the other logically or
ontologically but both are grounded in and derive from - and therefore have
their logical and ontological “prior” in - the not directly knowable Father
who operates in them - and from and in him alone.
As I have already said, the inner-trinitarian relationships cannot contradict
those existing in the divine operations. Although we cannot draw from this
the positive conclusion that Son and Spirit also necessarily presuppose each
other in the inner-trinitarian relationships, we can draw the negative conclu-
sion that neither can precede the other absolutely, logically or ontologically,
in the inner-trinitarian relationships and that allowance must be made for
the reciprocity of their relationship, which precisely because of this reci-
procity cannot be a relation of origin. Only their relationships to the Father
are relations of origin.
C. Community
The community of Christians has its roots in the sending of the Son by
the Father and in the love with which the Father loved the Son before the
The procession of the Holy Spirit 129
foundation of the world and which the Son gives to his own (cf. John 15:9;
17:26). But the sending of the Son cannot be rightly understood apart from
the sending of the Spirit. So far as the question of community is concerned,
that means specifically:
Christian community can only exist when human beings are addressed
through the words and life of other human beings and indeed, in such a way
that they are thereby addressed by Christ himself. But Christian community
can also only exist when the human beings so addressed respond with their
lives to this address, and indeed, in such a way that this response is sustained
by God just as the address is, namely, by God the Holy Spirit, and the
response also becomes in turn an address.
What is involved here is not the sum-total of innumerable personal rela-
tionships of the “I-Thou” kind but something much more inclusive which is
rooted ultimately in the fact that it is Jesus Christ who addresses us as the
Word of God through others and through the whole creation, that we have
all received the one Spirit and therefore constitute not just the sum-total of
innumerable “I’s” but one “We”. The relationship of address (in the broad-
est sense) and response (which turns again into address) does not itself alone
constitute community, therefore, but is nevertheless a fundamental and
indispensable factor in the creation and continuance of community.
At first glance, this relationship might seem to allow an interpretation
favourable to the filioque doctrine. The address in which Christ speaks, it
may be said, precedes the response sustained by the Holy Spirit. It is
certainly very tempting to take this as indicating a logical or ontological
“priority” of the Son over the Spirit. An argument along these lines can, of
course, be countered by pointing out that the address of Christ is preceded
by all that was mentioned earlier as the work of the Spirit in the incarnation
of Jesus and in his equipment for his life and work. It would be odd,
however, to affirm reciprocity in the operations of the Son and Spirit in
countless other aspects, a reciprocity which rules out any one-sided priority
or posteriority for either, and then to have to assign a wholly one-sided
“priority” to the Son in this relationship of address through Christ and
response in the Holy Spirit. It also seems to me not only inappropriate but
even a tacit abandonment in face of this problem if we simply exclude it and
make do with pointing out - however correctly - that the operation of the
Spirit in the whole also precedes the address through Christ.
The “priority” of the Son is not really as one-sided as appears at first sight
even in the relationship of address and response. There is only a limited
degree of priority. For the address cannot be considered in the abstract with
no reference to the presence of a person capable of being addressed. It must
130 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
be seen as a concrete approach to such a person. This means, however, that
the address which originates in Christ presupposes the ability of the person
addressed to respond to this address in the power of the Spirit. Just as the
response presupposes the address, so too the address which constitutes com-
munity, concretely understood, also presupposes the capacity to respond. But
this means that, from this standpoint too, Son and Spirit presuppose each
other. That the mutual relationship of Son and Spirit is not the same in both
directions is certainly clearer here than in the case of knowledge. That the
“priority” of the Son is limited is also clear from the fact that an absolute
“priority” would not accord with the transposition of response into address.
What has been said is especially important also for the relationship be-
tween apostolic ministry and the laity, inasmuch as, in the structure of the
Church, the address through Christ is primarily represented by the ministry. 1
The need of the ministry itself to be sustained by the Spirit is to be under-
stood along the lines of what was said earlier (page 121). Only if we recognize
the reciprocal dependence of Son and Spirit, of address and response, and 1
of capacity to respond and the transposition of response into new address, '
can an authoritarian view of Church and ministry be excluded on the basis of
the doctrine of God itself. On the other hand, the logical and psychological j
consequence of an assumed absolute “priority” of the Son over against the J
Spirit or of understanding the mission of the Spirit as the mere prolongation '
of the mission of the Son, is an authoritarian view of the church ministry 1
charged with this mission. This authoritarianism may take the form either 1
of a totalitarian clericalism or of a sectarian individualism. In both cases it ;
is precisely the partnership of Son and Spirit in address and response which
is missing; and the capacity to respond to and the will to address others who 1
are really capable of responding and therefore of themselves assuming in 1
turn the role of those making the address. Once again the filioque should
not be blamed for the emergence of such distortions; on the other hand, the 1
filioque doctrine certainly excludes the possibility of rejecting these distorted I
developments theologically on the basis of the trinitarian faith in God.
It is just here, in my view, that it becomes clear why the filioque cannot 1
play the part sometimes assigned to it, namely, that of a means of defence 1
- both theological and psychological - against religious fanaticism. In fact, 1
the exponents of sectarian fanaticism are thoroughly persuaded that they are 1
sent by Christ and regard the mission of the Spirit as a prolongation of the
mission of the Son, a view which is actually reinforced by the filioque. Only
when recourse to the institutional Church is made the main defensive (
measure against sectarian fanaticism - and here the Bible, too, assumes the j
role of an institution - can the filioque be used as a theological argument, i
The procession of the Holy Spirit 131
On the other hand, if we wish to guard against fanaticism by pleading the
necessity of the community dimension of the Church, the filioque actually
proves to be an obstacle, as was shown above in reference to sectarian
individualism of all kinds.
III. Conclusions
Justice can be done to the already mentioned factors only if we affirm of
relationships within the Trinity that the ground (ama) and origin (apxT)) of
the Spirit, as of the Son, are found in the Father alone but also that the
Spirit is related to the Son, as the Son is also related to the Spirit though in
a different way. We have to distinguish clearly here between the fundamental
original relationship, on the one hand, and other relationships in the inner-
trinitarian life, on the other.
The hypostatic difference between Son and Spirit is then due not to the
fact that the Son originates in the Father alone, whereas the Spirit originates
both in the Father and the Son but to the fact that Son and Spirit are related
to each other and, each in a different way, have their origin in the Father.
The fact that the character and mode of this difference cannot be defined in
formal logical terms, as the systematized filioque doctrine in western scho-
lasticism demands,3 far from constituting a weakness of this conception
indicates rather its apophatic character , pointing to the mystery of God which
transcends all human knowledge, and is therefore an essential element in
appropriate speech about God,
It is certainly impossible then to identify the persons of the Trinity with an
inner-trinitarian original relationship (relatio subsistens), as the filioque doc-
trine does. But this, too, is wholly in accord with the apophatic character of
our knowledge of God. The character of the persons of the Trinity must
remain a mystery. To equate the person with the relationships to the other
persons of the Trinity would be to infringe this mystery. While it is true that
the person is person only in these relationships and is known and described
in its distinctiveness only in these relationships, and while we can and must
define the person conceptually by these relationships, we are not at liberty
to define it substantially by equating these relationships, with original rela-
tionships (relationes subsistentes) . That would signify an inadmissible - and
3 Certainly there are also considerable differences in the view of the Trinity among
medieval western theologians. In the opinion of Duns Scotus, which contrasted with
the dominant view, the Spirit could be different from the Son even if he did not
proceed from the Son. In this respect at least, Scotus showed greater respect for the
mystery of God.
132 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
even logically indefensible - attack by the intellect on the mystery of the
trinitarian person. Since the starting point for reflection on the Trinity is not
the single divine substance, as in Augustine, but the Father who reveals
himself in the Son and in the Spirit, as in the New Testament, and since our
concern cannot be to seek a metaphysical ontology of God, it is difficult to
understand what possible interest there could be in equating the trinitarian
person with the original relationship. Nor was the issue of trinitarian thinking
in the one divine substance universally accepted even by the western me-
dieval theologians - not to mention the Greek and pre-Augustinian Latin
Fathers - but only the predominant position. Since Karl Rahner’s study on
“Theos in the New Testament”, it is less and less found among Roman
Catholic theologians.
Even the insights contributed by personal and relational thinking to our
understanding of the human person do not end up in a definition of the
person which equates its substance with its relations. On the contrary, in
the last analysis even the human person remains a mystery which while
revealed in relationships cannot be dissolved by identification with these
relationships. If this mystery were untrue of the trinitarian person, how
could it possibly be true for the human person? And conversely, if this
mystery applies to the human person, how could it not apply to the trinitarian
person? What is at stake in this question is the mystery of God and of
humanity, the divinity of God and, inseparable from this, the dignity of the
human person. Here, too, therefore, the study of th efilioque question leads
us into the heart of the life of the community of the Church and, beyond
this, into the life of humankind in general.
THE FILIOQUE YESTERDAY AND TODAY
BORIS BOBRINSKOY
! I. Controversial importance and relevance of an historical debate
1. For more than a thousand years the filioque has separated the Orthodox
Church and the Christian West. At present we are seeing in all the churches
a renewal of interest in the mystery of the Holy Spirit. The theme of the
1 Spirit appears more and more as a universal factor for the renewal of
! theology and indeed for the whole life of the Church. This renewed experi-
ence of life in the Holy Spirit certainly contrasts with spiritual crises which
the whole of the Christian world is passing through.
It is in the context of an awareness of such a renewal that we see the
| necessity for a joint reflection on one of the most traditional and insur-
| mountable obstacles to Christian unity, the Roman dogma of the procession
of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (filioque), promulgated at
the Council of Lyons in 1274. This medieval polemic between Rome and
Byzantium may appear derisory and unreal in the face of the apocalyptic
threats which weigh on the modern world and in particular on the Christian
world. Is it a sterile quarrel over words or abstract intellectual notions, or
| is it a confrontation between two total and coherent spiritual visions, of the
I Christian East and the Christian West, whose existential meaning only be-
comes clear from within a lived and prayed ecclesial theology?
In the course of the centuries, reflection on the Holy Spirit (and on the
mystery of his procession) has taken place within very different spiritual and
theological contexts. The danger of anachronism is great in reading and inter-
, preting early pneumatological texts in the light of later theological categories.
Let us mention, simply as a reminder:
a) The “economic” or soteriological approach to trinitarian theology be-
• Boris Bobrinskoy (Orthodox) is professor of dogmatics at the Orthodox Institute
j of St Sergius in Paris and at the Higher Institute for Ecumenical Studies in Paris.
134 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
fore Nicea, from the time of the New Testament onwards, and particularly
in the Latin and Alexandrian writers. There is not yet a real dissociation
between an “immanent” trinitarian theology and a trinitarian “economy” of
salvation.
b) The Arian and Eunomian controversies forwarded the elaboration of
a real trinitarian “theology”, above all in the work of the great Cappadocians
and St Augustine. The establishment of the meaning and context of the
word v7t6<tt(x<ti<; by the Cappadocians allowed for a deepening of a theology
of the inalienable properties of the trinitarian hypostases, and consequently
of the isolation of the idea of “procession” (eKTropeucns), a Johannine term
which was finally canonized in the pneumatological article of the Creed of
the Council of Constantinople (381).
c) The christological controversy between Alexandria and Antioch in the
fourth and fifth centuries very soon showed evidence of different approaches,
whether complementary or contradictory, to the mystery of the procession
of the Holy Spirit, in relation to the controversial dogma of Christ, God and
Man.
d) The important trinitarian work of St Augustine at once bears the mark
of his genius, but at the same time constitutes the fruit (perhaps one-sided)
of an evolution of Latin pneumatology going from Tertullian to St Augus-
tine. In St Augustine the Latin intuition of the filioque finds its theological
foundation which became the inheritance of the whole of scholastic and
Protestant theology, a theology of trinitarian appropriations, psychological
analogies, “relational” understanding of the person, etc.
e) Eastern patristic theology, and modern Orthodox “neo-patristic” the-
ology do not examine directly the mystery of the procession of the Holy
Spirit, but since St Theodore of Cyprus, Maximus the Confessor and St John
Damascene, down to our days, “react” to the western dogmatic formula-
tions. Patriarch Photius (ninth century) was the first to attempt to work out
a coherent doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father
alone , on the basis of the traditional Byzantine theology; in doing so he
perhaps hardened the distinction, certainly necessary but made too sharp in
his writings, between the eternal relations of the trinitarian hypostases, and
the temporal missions into the world. Until today, the Mystagogia of the
Holy Spirit constitutes the foundation of the dogmatic teaching of the Or-
thodox schools.
St Gregory of Cyprus and St Gregory Palamas sought to deepen the
discussion in a creative way in the light of the Orthodox vision of the
uncreated trinitarian energies. Without departing from the position of Patri-
arch Photius, they sketched out a creative theological synthesis which has
The filioque yesterday and today 135
been taken up again in our own times by modern Orthodox theology, starting
from the work of Vladimir Lossky (1*1958).
2. Modern Orthodox theology is divided between three main tendencies:
(1) One which maintains the rigid and absolute traditionalism of the schools,
the authors of nineteenth and twentieth century manuals of dogmatic the-
ology (Z. Rossis, C. Androutsos,1 P. Trembellas,2 Metropolitan Makary).
Their work is certainly based on that of Photius, but it suggests scarcely any
link between the problem of the procession and a general theological and
ecclesiological synthesis. (2) Those who give the filioque a limited and
relative value. (3) Those who emphasize its full theological value and
importance.
a) Among the efforts which have been made to get beyond the polemical
impasse about the filioque , we must mention first of all the Russian church
historian B. Bolotov. In his famous “Thesis on the Filioque” 3 he made a
distinction, which subsequently found much favour, between (a) dogmas
concerning the truth, which require an obligatory adhesion from all believ-
ers, (b) fteoXoyoufieva which concern what is probable, but which never-
theless have a very high degree of authority, and finally (c) theological
opinions which are the private opinions of theologians; “their principal
distinguishing mark is that they do not have authority”.4 Bolotov considered
the procession of the Spirit from ( ek ) the Father, to be a dogma (thesis 1),
but reduced the addition of Photius (from the Father alone), to the rank of
a theologoumenon (thesis 7), and that of St Augustine (filioque) to the rank
of a private theological opinion (thesis 27). However, this latter “cannot be
considered as an impedimentum dirimens to the re-establishment of com-
munion between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Old Catholic
Church” (thesis 27). 5
1 Their teaching is summarized in the classic work of Frank Gavin, Some Aspects of
Contemporary Greek Thought , London, SPCK, 1936.
2 Published in Athens in 1959-61 and in a French translation in Paris in 1966-8.
3 Published in German without any indication of authorship in the Revue Internationale
de Theologie VI, October-December 1898, No. 24, pp. 681-712, and recently reprint-
ed in a French translation in Istina, 1972, Nos 3-4, pp. 261-289.
4 Istina, op. cit., p. 263.
5 A very faithful restatement of Bolotov’s position can be found in Fr J. M. Garrigues,
in this same volume. Although he slightly distorts the position of Bolotov by making
him grant the filioque the position of a theologoumenon, Fr Garrigues shows a
remarkable openness to the Palamite positions, recognizing them as on an equality
with the filioque , and as constituting complementary theologoumena. What will be
the response to these views of traditionally minded theologians in the East (who
regard the filioque as a heresy) and in the West (who regard it as a dogma of faith)?
136 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
b) For his part, Fr Sergius Bulgakov6 asked whether the problem of the
procession of the Holy Spirit, which has taken such an importance in pneu-
matology, has in its present state “any right to existence; is it not simply a
false problem which leads inevitably to a sterile war of words?” He was
severe about the polemic, in which the victory won by Catholic theology
was more at the level of theological method than of the content of the
controversy, from the time of Photius onwards. He took up Bolotov’s
opinion that the formula “through the Son” introduced into the solemn
confession of faith of the Fathers of the Ecumenical Council (Nicea 787)
“did not have the strength of a dogma, but belonged to the realm of theology
of opinion, of 'beoXoyaujjieva”. He regarded it less as a dogmatic definition
than as a “question to future pneumatology” (pp. 93-94). Fr Bulgakov
concluded by condemning this ancient controversy as sterile and a matter of
indifference and affirmed that “th efilioque is not an impedimentum dirimens
to the divided Church once again becoming one” (p. 134). He thought that
“the filioquist controversies had been an obstacle to a genuine pneumatology,
having no spirit in them. They were conducted in the icy void of scholastic
abstraction and never took the universal dimensions of a real, substantial
pneumatology” (p. 124). “Would it not have been natural to expect that the
existence of such a serious heresy, of such a fundamental dogmatic diver-
gence, would penetrate into the whole life and doctrine of the two churches?
For many years, as far as I have been able, I have been looking for the
traces of this influence, and I have tried to understand the issues at stake,
what was the living significance of this divergence, where and how it was
revealed in practice. I confess that I have not succeeded in finding it; rather
I should go further and simply deny its existence. This divergence exists at
no point in patristic teaching on the activities of the Holy Spirit in the world,
on his ‘mission’, his gifts, on the mysteries, on grace . . . We end up with
a strange dogma, deprived of dogmatic power” (pp. 124-5).
However, Bulgakov diminishes the very sharp character of these last
affirmations when he links the Latin doctrine of th efilioque with the western
Christocentrism which culminates in the dogma of the Pope as Vicar of
Christ; “so, he says, the filioque is above all in fact a dogma about the
Pope” (p. 137, referring to Bolotov).
c) Against this, the importance of the doctrines of the procession of the
Holy Spirit, and of their influence on the life of the Church (or of their
expression of it) has been vigorously underlined by Vladimir Lossky and
those who have followed him.
6 The Paraclete (in Russian), Paris, 1936; in French, Paris, 1946.
The filioque yesterday and today 137
i) Lossky maintains with force and interior evidence that “for the Ortho-
dox Church, the Trinity is the unshakeable foundation of all religious
thought, of all piety, of all experience”.7 8 Trinitarian dogma controls and
determines all the anthropological, spiritual and ecclesiological reflection
which we find in Lossky. If, in his classical work, The Mystical Theology of
the Eastern Church , we do not yet find an explicit working out of this
question, the theological premises of the Orthodox doctrine of the procession
of the Holy Spirit are already set out with great clarity; the doctrine of the
monarchy of the Father, the hypostatic relations always in a threefold pat-
tern, which thus transcend the philosophical way of the oppositions of human
logic; the specificity of the role of the divine Persons of the Son and the
Holy Spirit at work in the world.
It was above all in a lecture given at Oxford in 1947 that Lossky developed
the whole scheme of the problematic of the filioque.8. He affirmed first of all
that “the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit has been (whether
one likes it or not), the one dogmatic reason for the separation between
East and West. All the other divergencies, which historically have ac-
companied or followed the first controversy over the filioque, to the extent
that they have any doctrinal content, are linked more or less directly to this
primordial point”. There, and in a series of lectures, as yet unpublished,
, which he gave between 1953 and 1957 where his thought deepened and
I expanded, Lossky showed the real non-sense of filioquism on a properly
theological plane. This doctrine seemed to him to bring in an “alien light”,
that of fallen reason and sensibility, into the “holy of holies of the divine
existence”.9
Finally, it was in this same series of lectures that Lossky took up and
, developed the intuitions of Palamism attempting to integrate what was
positive in the filioque into a theology of the eternal trinitarian “manifes-
tations”, as developed by Gregory of Cyprus and Gregory Palamas.
ii) Alongside Lossky, Father John Meyendorff from 1950 reopened the
eastern patristic material on the procession of the Holy Spirit,10 renewed our
7 The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, London, 1958, p. 65.
8 “La Procession du Saint Esprit dans la doctrine trinitaire Orthodoxe”, Paris, 1948;
; published in English in In the Image and Likeness of God, London, 1975, pp. 71-96.
9 Numerous references to these unpublished lectures will be found in Olivier Clement’s
. study, “Vladimir Lossky, un theologien de la personne et du Saint Esprit”, in the
Memorial Vladimir Lossky of the Messager de L’Exarchat du Patriache Russe en
j Europe Occidentale, Nos 30-31, Paris, 1959, pp. 137-206.
10 “La Procession du Saint Esprit chez les Peres Orientaux”, in Russie et Chretien-
I neti, 1950, Nos 3-4, pp. 158-178.
138 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
knowledge of the historical origins of the filioque in the West11 and finally
made an appeal to the creative openings sketched out by Palamism.12
iii) In our time, Paul Evdokimov,13 Nikos Nissiotis,14 Father Dumitru
Staniloae15 and Olivier Clement16 have followed a common search for the
integration of the problem of the procession of the Holy Spirit into the
Palamite synthesis, always attempting to make a creative transcendence of
the age-old oppositions.
Thus we are witnessing in certain Orthodox circles (and more generally
in all the Christian churches) a notable renewal of pneumatology and a
rediscovery of its vital significance as a dimension in the whole of theology
and of the life of the Church. As to the filioque, it is considered in Orthodox
circles if not as the cause, at least as one of the symptoms of a pneumato-
logical regression which has touched the life of the Church in depth, with its
ministerial and sacramental structures, which has diminished the fullness of
the experience of salvation, which distorts the exercise of power and free-
dom, and which calls into question the very meaning of ecclesial and epis-
copal collegiality.
II. Historical circumstances and the fact of the addition of the filioque
1 . One cannot deny that the doctrine of the filioque was to some extent
rooted in Latin theology before St Augustine (cf. Tertullian, Novatian, St
Hilary, St Ambrose). However, these very early filioquist formulas scarcely
distinguish between trinitarian theology on the one side and the economy of
salvation on the other. Even for the Bishop of Hippo, the filioque remains
the expression of a personal and hence provisional theological investigation;
his psychological analogies have only an illustrative character.
The conciliar proclamations, first in Spain in the sixth century, the adop-
tion of the filioque by Charlemagne, then at Rome in the eleventh century,
11 “At the Origins of the Filioque controversy” (in Russian) in “La Pensee Ortho-
doxe”, No. IX, Paris, 1953, pp. 114-37, and Byzantine Theology, New York, 1974,
pp. 91-4.
12 A Study of Gregory P alamos, London, 1964, pp. 228-32.
13 See principally L’ Esprit Saint dans la tradition orthodoxe, Paris, 1969.
14 “Pneumatologie orthodoxe”, in Le Saint Esprit, Geneva, Labor & Fides, 1963,
pp. 85-106.
15 See his essay later in this book.
16 “A propos du Filioque”, in Le Messager Orthodoxe, nos. 7 and 8, Paris, pp. 9-22
and 22-32, “De la Transfiguration” (end of the preceding article) ibid. 1960, no. 10,
pp. 26-31. He takes up the whole historical and theological problem of the filioque
in a contribution made on the 7th'centenary of the Council of Lyons (1274) “Byzance
et le concile de Lyon” in Unite Chretienne, Lyons, 1975, No. 37.
The filioque yesterday and today 139
gave the doctrine an ecclesial resonance and authority. The Council of Lyons
(1274) gave it the force of law and dogma for the whole of Latin Christendom
and furnished the decree with an anathema (“damnamus et reprobamus”).
The Orthodox East never accepted the dogmatic definitions of the “Council
i of Union”. Despite severe pressure from the civil and religious power, a
real resistance of the Orthodox people formed against this artificial and
ephemeral “union”.
I do not propose to develop here the history of the negotiations for union
between the Greeks and the Latins after the Council of Lyons. Let us notice
however that the popular feeling aroused after the dogmatic agreement of
the Council of Florence (1438-9) was no less than after the Council of
Lyons, although the later Council seemed to offer a better common basis
for agreement in the final formula for the procession of the Holy Spirit from
the Father, “through the Son”, but in a strictly filioquist interpretation. We
must also add that the theological debates were concerned with the legit-
imacy of the addition of th e filioque to the Creed, and with defensive anti-
Latin argumentation. The Palamite synthesis, already anticipated by Gre-
gory of Cyprus and applied by him to the theology of the processions was
not able to be brought into the discussion.
2. I would also like, in relation to this brief historical survey, to underline
the consciousness of the Orthodox Church that beyond the strictly dogmatic
content of the problem of the filioque , to which I shall return later, the
“moral” aspect of the filioque is in itself significant, if not of primary
importance.
It is perhaps the Slavophile theologian A. Khomiakov who has most
uncompromisingly formulated this consciousness of the Orthodox Church of
having been subjected to a real moral fratricide through the dogmatic con-
straint exercised down the centuries. Only the whole and unanimous Church
has the right to define new dogmas or to modify the symbol of faith. By
arrogating this right to itself, one part of the Church “was destroying the
equality of rights between the various communities, and the central import-
ance of unity of spirit and love, on which were based all the concepts of the
primitive Christian community”. “This pride of the separated Churches,
who have had the effrontery to alter the Creed of the whole Church without
the consent of their brethren, was not inspired by love: it was a crime before
God and before Holy Church. And how can the faith, the truth, survive
intact, where love has been impoverished?” 17
17 Texts quoted in A. Gratieux, A. S. Khomiakov et le Mouvement Slavophile, Vol.
II, Paris, Editions du Cerf, 1939, pp. 83 and 86: cf. pp. 119 and 139.
140 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Father S. Bulgakov, for his part, comments that in the filioquist contro-
versy the dogmatic problem had become an instrument of domination and
of self-defence, so that th e filioque became the symbol of papal absolutism
or, on the other side, that of its negation; that is why, for the Greeks at
Florence, the question of the insertion of th e filioque in the Creed was more
important than its dogmatic content.18
3. It seems to me of great importance to give the “moral” aspect of the
adjunction of the filioque its true weight. It is not a question for me of
casting doubt on the good faith of the Latin West. A by no means negligible
amount of misunderstanding is still linked to the estrangement of Rome and
Byzantium. I entirely accept the opinion of Fr A. de Halleux that the
insertion of the filioque into the Creed of Constantinople can have signified
at the beginning nothing more than a natural adaptation to local tradition,
which showed, no doubt, a regrettable ignorance of the conciliar tradition,
but certainly not a subjective distrust of the Eastern Orthodox Church (cf.
page 83 of this volume).19
It nevertheless remains true that the addition of the filioque continues to
be a stumbling-block and a scandal for Orthodoxy, as much in the actual
fact of it as in its theological content. The wound experienced by the very
people of the Orthodox Church is expressed with truth in the rather hard
words of Khomiakov quoted above. I think it desirable that the Roman
Catholic Church’s first step be the removal of the filioque from the Creed,
primarily as a token of fraternal reconciliation, and as a necessary prelimi-
nary to the setting up of a bilateral theological dialogue, without this suppres-
sion of the filioque having ipso facto to signify a denial by the Catholics of
the content of the filioque which is traditional for them. This gesture would
have enormous ecclesiological significance, as a spontaneous gesture which
would not come at the end of a process of ecclesiastical bargaining or
theological compromise, but which, by its very gratuity, would lift people’s
minds to the level of mutual confidence and love, and would then greatly
contribute to lightening the whole climate of church relations and the ancient
theological debate.
The second stage would allow for the opening up of a genuine theological
dialogue (at present premature) between the churches where a loyal con-
frontation with our divergences would lead us to a genuine common deep-
ening of the theological question.
18 Op. cit., p. 123.
19 “Pour un accord oecumenique sur la procession de l’Esprit Saint et 1’addition du
Filioque au symbole”, in Irenikon, 1978, No. 4, pp. 451-4-69.
The filioque yesterday and today 141
j
This stage could be followed eventually by a reformulation in common of
{ the pneumatological article of the Creed, which would respond to the theo-
logical progress being made and would express the dogmatic agreement
which had been reached and would itself be a major stage on the way to the
restoration of sacramental communion between our churches.
III. The positive theological content of the filioque
It is true that modern Orthodox theology has itself also made an effort at
“spiritual discernment” by drawing a distinction between the filioque and
“filioquism”, thus rediscovering the legitimate theological and soteriological
context of the Latin (and Alexandrian) tradition before St Augustine, and
before the Western Councils of Lyons and Florence.
1. The legitimate christological context of the filioque
A comparative study of the theological traditions of East and West during
the first centuries has led me to the conviction that from the beginning of
the third century of the “western” theologies (Latin and Alexandrian) a
different emphasis from that of the East was put on the very movement of
trinitarian revelation, understood as the revelation of the mystery of
salvation.
In the West, the emphasis was placed to a preponderent (though not
exclusive) degree on a movement of revelation Father-Son-Spirit, in which
the Spirit, as the revelation of the mutual love of the Father and the Son,
is communicated to men jointly by the Father and the Son. The Fourth
Gospel in particular expresses the promise of the Paraclete, sent by the
Father and the Son (John 17 and 20). Starting from this christological
diagram of Father-Son-Spirit, theological contemplation, or rather specula-
tion, spontaneously went on to consider the eternal basis of these temporal
missions, the inner-trinitarian “procession” or “relations”. At a time when
! the distinction between the temporal mission and eternal procession had not
been elaborated (let us not be too quick to see in this an incomplete
“archaic” theology) the idea of an eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from
the Father and the Son (at this stage still a very tentative idea) expressed
, essentially this same dynamic of the Church’s experience of the Spirit, in
the Church and in human life in general, as the gift of the Father and the
Son.
In such a perspective, the Spirit is seen as acting in the Church above all
as the power of growth and fruitfulness which enables us to carry on the
142 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
mission of Jesus in the world, through history, until the end of the age, in
a Church which itself is on pilgrimage to the heavenly kingdom.20
This missionary and apostolic perspective of salvation thought of in terms
of the Church’s growth in time and space is certainly profoundly biblical and
traditional, but it has dominated the whole understanding of the Church, it's
ministries, its mission, its theological language, in a one-sided way. But
before passing judgment on the omissions of a partial and incomplete vision,
let us first of all keep hold of what is positive and necessary in this aspect
of the dynamics of salvation, centred on the mission and expansion of the
Church in the world, in and through the power of the Spirit: “Go and teach
all the nations” (Matt. 28:19). The Church obeys this commission when, at
the end of the Liturgy, that eucharistic “Pentecost”, she “sends back” (or
rather “sends out”) the faithful into the world (“Ite missa est”, “Let us go
forth in peace”), carrying the Good News having through the eucharistic
union themselves become the Good News.
2. Other positive aspects of the filioque
As to the positive value of the Latin theology of the Holy Spirit, I would
sum it up in three points which have their place in an Orthodox vision of
the Trinity.
(a) The Holy Spirit is the mutual love and the bond of love between the
Father and the Son. This idea, which is perhaps inspired by the psychological
analogies of St Augustine, turns up again in the East in St Gregory Palamas
in the fourteenth century, but replaced in an Orthodox Trinitarian context.21
I would add that in Orthodox consciousness of the Trinity, it is not only the
Holy Spirit who has the “prerogative” to be the link between the divine
hypostases. Each hypostasis gathers together and unites the others in him-
self, the Father as source in the monarchy, the Son as the One in whom the
Father and the Spirit find their resting place.
(b) The Spirit is the common gift of the Father and the Son. Orthodoxy
20 Prof. John Zizioulas has in recent years sought in a series of studies and articles to
renew the problem of pneumatology and its implications in the life and thought of the
Church in the East and in the West. He distinguishes, in perhaps a slightly too
schematic way, a western type of pneumatology where the Spirit is given and works
in the Church as the power of the Father and the Son, a more balanced eastern
pneumatology, where the Holy Spirit makes the Risen Christ present, above all in
the Eucharistic community, thus revealing the Lord of the Parousia in the today of
the Church. Cf. eg. “La portee de l’Eglise des Apotres pour l’Eglise d’aujourd’hui”
in Istina (Paris) 1974. No. 1, pp. 65-94. Also in the summary of a lecture on “The
Holy Spirit and the Church” in Episkepsis, Geneva, No. 169, 1 June 1967.
21 Cf. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, op. cit., pp. 186-8.
The filioque yesterday and today 143
adds, nonetheless, (i) that the Holy Spirit also gives himself, for every divine
gift to creation is a common gift of the Holy Trinity; the Spirit is no stranger
to his own coming; (ii) that the Spirit in his turn leads us to the Son, and
through him, to the Father. It is therefore no less true to say that in giving
us himself, the Spirit gives us the Father and the Son.
(c) The eternal Son is not extraneous to the procession of the Holy Spirit.
But Orthodox theology adds, (i) in an ineffable manner, (ii) without bringing
in the idea of causality, (iii) without calling into question the untransmissable
character of the Father’s hypostatic property of being the one Source and
Principle of the Divinity of the Son and of the Spirit.
IV. The omissions of “filioquism”
1. Orthodox Christology and the procession of the Holy Spirit
When we turn to eastern theology, we find, it seems to me, a better
i balance in the dynamics of revelation. Side by side with the classic diagram
I Father-Son-Spirit of which I have spoken above, another movement of
revelation and of communion in the life of the Trinity can be outlined around
the diagram Father-Spirit-Son. This movement, perhaps more interior,
brings out above all the presence, the coming to rest, of the Spirit on the
Christ, who is the Word incarnate and glorified in the flesh. Recent New
Testament exegesis is rediscovering the pneumatological dimension of Chris-
tology, particularly in the works of St Luke, and through the Syrian theo-
logical tradition. This perspective has brought about at the present day a
considerable enrichment in christological thought and in the concept of
salvation itself, of the sacraments and of the Church; all in all, it is the
foundations of Trinitarian theology itself which have been restored.
It is above all in the life of the Saviour that the Trinity is revealed, that
we see the Spirit at work, that the infinite love of the Father is made
manifest. Before communicating the Spirit to men, Christ is himself the
place of rest, the receptacle of the Spirit’s plenitude and perfection. All that
we can say of the identity, of the messianic, divine and filial consciousness,
of the human psychology of Jesus, must be situated within this moving
power, this infinite enkindling of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is in Jesus as
Jesus is in the Spirit. We cannot resign ourselves to reducing this reciprocal
indwelling to a simple relationship of unilateral causality. We are dealing
indeed with an infinite coincidence of the Son and the Spirit, a coincidence
of fullness and mutual transparency which can only be expressed in human
I; terms in the concept of reciprocal revelation and love. Before being the gift
144 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
of Christ, the Spirit reveals Christ’s identity. He actuates Christ’s presence,
both in the time of the Incarnation and in the time of the Church.
The Holy Spirit therefore determines the life of the Church, and not only
insofar as he comes from Christ, but insofar as he constantly prepares the
human heart to receive the coming of the Risen Christ. It is from this
ecclesial, sacramental, spiritual experience of Christ, who is anointed by the
Holy Spirit (Luke 4:4, 14, 18; Acts 2:33), and of his Body, the Church,
herself the bearer of the Spirit, that theological vision attains to the intuition
of the eternal mystery of the Holy Spirit, no longer as proceeding from the
Son, or through the Son, but as resting on the Son from all eternity. The
descent of the Spirit on Jesus at the Jordan therefore appears in the Ortho-
dox trinitarian vision as an icon, a manifestation in history of the eternal
resting of the Spirit of the Father on the Son. Thus it is that, following St
John Damascene, the Orthodox liturgy for Pentecost proclaims, “the Spirit
who proceeds from the Father and rests on the Son”.
The incarnation of Christ thus finds its extension through the whole of
human history, of which it is the heart and focus. Touched by the same
energies and strengthened by the power of the Spirit which dwelt in Jesus
as in his Temple, man in his turn is renewed by the Spirit who conforms us
to Christ, and who shines out from us in ineffable light into the darkness of
the world.
All the theology of the Church, of salvation, of the new man, of the
sacraments is profoundly marked by this mysterious movement of reciprocity
between Christ and the Spirit who are manifest, give themselves, are sent
in such a way as constantly to ensure and renew the equilibrium in the life
of the Church between obedience and creative liberty, between institution
and prophecy.
This movement of reciprocity of Christ and the Spirit must finally be
reflected in trinitarian theology itself. Perhaps without always expressing all
the ecclesial implications of the theology of the Holy Spirit, it has nonetheless
been a very sure spiritual instinct which has made Orthodoxy reject, as much
in the past as today, any attempt to compromise this equilibrium of the Son
and the Spirit. This explains the tenacity with which Orthodoxy has con-
stantly resisted the western attempts, in the Councils of Lyons and Florence,
to introduce th efilioque into the Creed.
It has not at all been my desire at all costs to make an opposition between
the theological and spiritual traditions of East and West, still less to make
them exclusive of one another. I have therefore questioned less the positive
element in the western theology of the procession of the Holy Spirit than its
omissions, what it does not say and what it cannot account for; the experi-
The filioque yesterday and today 145
ence of the fullness of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and in the
life of the Christian, each of which become the spiritual body of Christ
himself.
2. Omissions and inadequacies
a) The “revelatory function” of the Holy Spirit allows us to say, as a
counterbalance to the western diagram, that, if it is true that the Son is not
extraneous to the procession of the Holy Spirit (without bringing in the idea
of causality), on the other hand neither is the Holy Spirit extraneous, exterior
to the generation of the Son. One cannot separately conceive of or articulate
the two eternal movements of the Trinity; one must remember, following
the whole of Orthodox tradition both ancient and modern, that their char-
acter is concomitant (St Gregory of Nyssa) and simultaneous (St John Da-
mascene). Any introduction, even purely conceptual and speculative, of
anteriority in the generation of the Son relative to the procession of the
Spirit, contributes to the rationalization and unbalancing of the trinitarian
mystery, to the great hurt of the Church, in which the reign of the Trinity
is inaugurated.
b) The notion of a procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the
Son tamquam ab uno principio is radically unacceptable to Orthodox the-
ology, whatever may be the explanations or attenuations of the formula. For
Orthodox theology, the Father does not transmit his hypostatic properties,
even to the Son. What is common to two hypostases (their attributes-ener-
gies, their life, the divine nature itself) is common to all three. If the Holy
Spirit is given by the Father and the Son in the sanctifying grace of the
Church, he is, then, also given by himself. He appears as the hypostatic gift
of trinitarian grace, the grace by which we are incorporated in the eternal
banquet of the trinitarian kingdom.
c) The theological idea of the procession of the Holy Spirit through (per)
the Son is to be found in different theological contexts in Byzantium, in the
West and in modern theology. This idea is capable of receiving an Orthodox
interpretation, as for example, in St John Damascene,22 or in the synodical
letter of Patriarch Tarasius to the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council
22 “The Spirit is the Spirit of the Father . . . but he is also the Spirit of the Son, not
because he proceeds from him, but because he proceeds through him from the Father,
for there is only one Cause, the Father”. (Exposition of the Orthodox faith, 1,12;
P.G.94, 849 B).
146 Spirit of God , Spirit of Christ
of Nicea (787). 23 The eternal Son is understood as the mediator or the gift
of the Spirit and the place of his procession.
But it can also conceal a veiled filioquist doctrine, as was the case at the
Council of Florence. The age-old conflict over th efilioque then clearly recalls
this. I do not therefore believe that the compromise formula per Filium can
of itself offer a satisfactory solution to the conflict, on account of the am-
biguities it can contain.
V. The transcending or integration of the filioque into an Orthodox
trinitarian vision
1. The ecclesial experience of the mystery of the Trinity
We are witnessing in our time a notable deepening of pneumatology and
a discovery of its central place in the whole life of the Church, and in
theology. Too direct and scrutinizing an approach to the mystery of the
procession of the Holy Spirit runs the risk of hardening and emptying out
what is inexpressible and shutting the dialogue up in sterile polemics. The
history of the controversy confirms this eloquently. It is time to re-immerse
our reflection, our theological research, our intellect itself, in the heart of
the Church’s prayer and love, where the divine Spirit breathes and gives life.
It is then, and only then, that the existential meaning of the eternal proces-
sions, for the Church and for our salvation, will become manifest and will
communicate itself to us.
We have to admit that if the patristic and liturgical tradition of Orthodoxy
has preserved this knowledge of the divine mysteries in its sacred deposit,
and thus speaks of the reciprocal relations of the Son and the Spirit, the
Orthodox theology of the schools has only assimilated and worked out this
important aspect of revelation in a very limited way.
I am nonetheless convinced that today, as before, it is only the patristic
synthesis, renewed in Palamism and realized today in modern Orthodox
“neo-patristic” theology which will be capable of reinserting theological
speculation in its living and creative context, that of trinitarian experience
and vision which are always living in the Church, the Body of Christ, the
Temple of the Holy Spirit. There is, it seems to me, an essential convergence
between the most creative patristic intuitions of Byzantine theology (St
Gregory of Cyprus and St Gregory Palamas) and contemporary theological
research which brings out the pneumatological dimension of Christology and
its extension in the Church. In both cases, it is the great spiritual tradition
23 Cf. Mansi, Collection Conciliorum XII, 1122.
The filioque yesterday and today 147
of the Church which is primary and which introduces us into the mystery of
the eternal Son, incarnate in Jesus Christ, dwelling place and source of the
Spirit who proceeds from the Father.
To rediscover the place of the Spirit in the mystery both of the personal
Christ and of the total Christ, which is the Church, has become one of the
urgent necessities of our theological task, whatever Christian confession we
may belong to; without this, the very meaning of the mystery of salvation
will become atrophied and deformed.
To speak of the fullness of the Spirit in Christ, of the moving of the Lord
Jesus in the Spirit, of the transmission of the Spirit by Christ in the Church,
is to announce to human beings the fullness of salvation and of new life in
the divine Trinity; it is to announce that the Church and humanity cannot
be defined in terms of themselves, but that in their ultimate roots they are
constituted by that indwelling of the Spirit which makes us Christs and sons,
inheritors of the Father’s kingdom.
Contemplation of the trinitarian mystery and of the eternal processions
then becomes co-extensive with the fullness of our salvation. It is therefore
necessary that trinitarian theology should itself be adequate for translating
trinitarian experience, both of the Church and in the Church, that it should
be an icon of the trinitarian life to which we are invited. Then there can be
manifested the full concurrence of theology and life (St Irenaeus).
! 2. Presuppositions and conditions of the theological dialogue
The historical circumstances of the dogmatic formulation of the filioque
(or of any other dogma) are inseparable from its objective doctrinal content,
since truth and love form an undivided unity. The restoration of the genuine
spiritual climate of dialogue is therefore an absolute and necessary presup-
position for such dialogue. In our time it has become necessary with unpar-
alleled urgency.
The lifting of the anathemas between Rome and Constantinople in 1965
i must extend to the whole body of the unilateral acts which have contributed
to creating a dogmatic gulf between our churches. The promulgation of the
filioque as a truth of faith at the Council of Lyons in 1274 must first of all
| be freed from the anathemas which accompany it. If the Latin dogma of the
filioque loses, in the eyes of the Orthodox, its constraining character, if the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed recovers its common primitive form and
! becomes again a true “Symbol” of unity and love, then the filioque will
cease to be seen as a sin against unity and love. It will then be possible for
the Orthodox to consider it as a particular theological investigation belonging
148 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
to a certain region, to a certain period of Christianity, seeking to express a
particular aspect of the Catholic faith.
If the doctrine of the filioque loses its constraining character it seems to
me that it would then be possible to seek, in a dialogue of love and of truth,
to integrate it into a far wider trinitarian and soteriological vision, that of
the Church of all times and of all places.
* * *
These reflections on the filioque do not simply constitute a unilateral
appeal to the theological conscience of our Catholic and Protestant brethren.
In order that the Catholic Church should be able to accomplish its progress
towards unity of faith with Orthodoxy, in order that the Latin “dogma” of
the filioque should be resituated in a full theological and spiritual context,
the whole Orthodox Church must also become committed to a profound
spiritual renewal of its theological activity, so that eucharistic life may be
the true place of trinitarian communion in the Church. The renewal of
ecclesial life and thought in the Holy Spirit is, for the whole of Christendom
of East and West alike, the necessary condition for the gift of the Spirit of
unity, of love and of witness in the world.
A ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEW
OF THE POSITION NOW REACHED
IN THE QUESTION OF THE FILIOQUE
JEAN-MIGUEL GARRIGUES
The specifically ecumenical problem posed by the filioque can be summed
up as follows: in its liturgical use of the Creed the Catholic Church professes
the faith that the Holy Spirit a Patre Filioque procedit. Pope Paul VI em-
ployed this formula again in his profession of faith in 1968. To many Ortho-
dox Christians today the dogmatic character, so to speak, which the Catholic
Church assigns to the filioque still seems to be the impedimentum dirimens
to the union of the Church of the East and the Church of the West.
It could very well be, however, that the filioque acquires a meaning
ecumenically acceptable to the Orthodox precisely by becoming an integral
element in the official teaching of the Catholic faith. When in the exercise
of their solemn magisterium in the Catholic Church the bishops and the
Pope employ a formula such as the filioque (and the same applies to tran-
substantiation, immaculate conception, papal infallibility), this does not
mean that they are canonizing the exact meaning this formula was given in
the theological trend which invented it and had used it up to that point. On
the contrary, it means that, having been recognized as a normative expres-
sion of the faith, the ultimate meaning of this formula must be sought in
conformity with revelation, which for the Catholic means in Scripture read
in the light of the symphony of Tradition (ecumenical councils, Fathers of
the Church). If the filioque represents an essential dimension of the Church’s
trinitarian faith it can only yield up its significance if it embodies a truth
unanimously recognized by the Fathers (explicitly or implicitly). Once it has
become part of the Church’s confession of faith, the filioque can no more be
regarded as the canonization of the trinitarian theology of St Augustine, St
• Jean Miguel Garrigues (Roman Catholic) is a monk and priest of the Diocesan
Church of Aix-en-Provence in France and teaches Patristic Dogmatics at the Catholic
Institute of Toulouse.
150 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Anselm or St Thomas Aquinas than the dogma of the Council of Ephesus
was the canonization of the Christology of St Cyril of Alexandria. The faith
of Ephesus was ecumenically received when by their union formula St Cyril
and John of Antioch abandoned any thought of reducing that faith to their
own individual chris tologies, however excellent these appeared to them, and
agreed instead to recognize that formula as embodying the common element
of the Church’s faith which each of their christologies was trying with greater
or less success to express.
It took another three centuries or so (down to the Second Council of
Nicea in 787) for the post-Nicene christological faith, formulated for the first
time at Ephesus, to disclose its ultimate meaning in the Church, and one
still wonders today, in the dialogue with the Nestorian and non-Chalcedonian
churches, whether the ecumenical reception of that true meaning was suf-
ficiently complete. And if that is the case with Christology, what are we to
say of the Church’s pneumatological faith! The first Council of Constanti-
nople at which the Nicene Creed was developed under the influence of the
Cappadocian Fathers, was held in the absence of the papal legates (though
their presence was canonically required for ecumenicity) and of the western
bishops. The latter met at about the same time in Rome in a Council which
was dominated by the personality of St Ambrose. St Ambrose, following a
traditional trinitarian theology going back to Tertullian, had already in his
writings professed faith in the filioque. On both sides there was a realization
that the pneumatological formulas lacked sufficient ecumenical reception.
When East and West met again at Ephesus fifty years later and forbad any
addition to the symbol of faith, they opted for the Nicene Creed without the
development of the First Council of Constantinople on the Holy Spirit. It
was only twenty years later at the Council of Chalcedon that the Niceno-
Constantinopolitan Creed was proclaimed and received ecumenically. But
by this time St Augustine had developed the filioque in his trinitarian the-
ology and Pope St Leo had officially professed it in a letter to the Church
in Spain. On the basis of one and the same Creed, which the easterners
believed excluded the filioque (cf. the reaction of Theodoret of Cyrrhus)
and the westerners believed implied it, the pneumatological development
would in future follow at first parallel lines and then, after the Photian crisis
and the schism of 1054, conflicting lines.
The medieval period was poisoned by the polemic atmosphere prevailing
between East and West from which not even very great thinkers and saints
were exempt. Trinitarian theology was subtly systematized on both sides to
exclude the other’s position. For example St Anselm and then St Thomas
Aquinas demonstrated that if the divine Persons are subsistent relationships,
A Roman Catholic view 151
the Father and the Son in their reciprocal relationship can constitute the
unique principle of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The fact that the West,
profiting from the difficult political situations in the East, managed for a
time to impose this trinitarian theology on the East at the Councils of Lyons
and Florence, does not mean that the filioque had been really received
I ecumenically in this form, as was soon demonstrated by the Orthodox
Church’s rejection of those Councils. On the contrary, Gregory of Cyprus
!and then Gregory Palamas, on the basis of the apophatic distinction between
God’s essence and energies, argued that while the energy of the Spirit may
proceed eternally from the Father and the Son, it by no means follows from
this that the Person of the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But
they were no more successful in persuading the Latins with their doctrine of
energies than were the Latins in persuading them with their doctrine of
relationships. Each side had the impression that the other was trying to lead
it “ad obscurum per obscurius”. To pursue this road again would only lead
to the same result. Not that the doctrine of trinitarian relations has no
patristic basis. (The principles are found more explicitly in the easterners St
Gregory Nazianzen and St Maximus the Confessor than in St Augustine.)
And the doctrine of the divine energies rests on an insight which was
widespread in almost all the eastern patristic writings. Both these theologies
are valuable and would benefit by mutual receptivity. But for all the obstin-
i acy displayed on both sides in turning them into dogmatic statements, they
are essentially medieval developments and cannot claim to be the norm for
the concordant faith of the Fathers of the undivided Church concerning the
relationship between the Spirit and the Son in the Trinity.
The dogmatic core of the relationship of the Spirit to the Son in the
Trinity depends on the mystery of the Holy Spirit as the divine Third Person
' (cf. the sequence of the baptismal formula in Matt. 28:19 which controls the
> Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed). As Bolotov stated in his famous Theses
on the Filioque : “The Spirit is the third hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. His
very being presupposes the existence of the Father as well as that of the
Son, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and because the
Father is Father only of the Son. As soon as God, 7rpo6oX€us too nveupxxTos,
i is named father , He is thought of as having a Son. Without incurring the
i danger of too great inexactitude, therefore, it can be said that vrrdpxovTos
< (oVTOS, lxt>€OT(I>TO<;) TOO YlOV €K TOO IlaTpOS eK7TOpeU€TOa TO Ilv€U|Xa to "Aytov
fi (whereas the Son exists, the Spirit proceeds from the Father).” And further
on: “The begetting of the Son- Word is a condition proper to God (fteo-
- TTpeircis) for the unconditioned procession of the Holy Spirit, the motive and
the basis (and therefore the logical ‘prius’) for the procession of the Holy
152 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Spirit from the Father.” And in a note: “If the Holy Spirit as well as the
Son is of the essence of the Father, why then - as the Arians and the
Macedonians asked - is the Holy Spirit not the Son? They were told: Because
the Spirit is €K7ropeuTov from the Father and not yevvTiTov (by generation).
Why then is the Spirit not ytvvqTov (begotten)? Because only the Only-
begotten, i.e. the Son, is yevv^Tos. Therefore the Son by his being as
Begotten, also determines the Tpoiros rfis u-Trap^eco?, the modus existendi,
of the Holy Spirit, his being non-begotten.”
On the basis of the scriptures and the symphony of the Fathers of the
Church, the only strictly dogmatic content of the filioque which can claim
any rightful place in the Church’s confession of faith, is that the Holy Spirit
goes forth (eKTropeuoixevov) from the Father as Father, i.e. as begetter of the
unique Son. Understood in this way, the filioque simply spells out the dogma
of the Third Person, whom the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed presents
to us as proceeding from the Father who begets the unique Son. If the
Roman Catholic Church wishes to demonstrate that when it confesses the
filioque it does no more than affirm the fact, universally recognized by the
Fathers, that the procession of the Spirit depends on the generation of the
Word in the bosom of the Father, without any desire to turn into a dogma
one of the theological explanations of how this dependence works, then it
would be desirable for the Pope and the Catholic bishops to point out, as
did Pope Leo III, that the dogmatic version of the Niceno-Constantinopol-
itan Creed is the original Greek text confessed by the Councils and this
version already contains the full catholic faith in the Holy Spirit; the filioque ,
being no more than a Latin explanation which does not claim to add anything
to the conciliar dogma. But the Roman Catholic Church will be able to do
this only if the Orthodox churches for their part, taking note of this solemn
declaration, abandon the view that there is more in the filioque than the
Catholic Church sees in it and accepts the liturgical development of the
Latin Church without branding it as heretical. One would hope that on this
plane the Orthodox will show just as much broadmindedness to a traditional
expression in the Latin Church as they do today to the christological expres-
sions of the non-Chalcedonian churches.
Although in the light of the concordance of the Fathers of the undivided
Church the filioque cannot be interpreted as a unilateral addition to the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan dogma, the Creed of which was received by the
whole Church at the Council of Chalcedon, it remains true that, as an
explanation of the dogma, it is still (as Bolotov has shown) a theologou-
menon whose precise status in relation to the dogma needs to be clarified
at the ecumenical level. Specifically a distinction must be made between the
A Roman Catholic view 153
universal and strictly ecumenical range of the theologoumenon on the one
hand, and its particular interpretation of Latin trinitarian theology on the
other.
The validity of the filioque as a theologoumenon in relation to the dogma
has its limit in the fact often insisted on in the East, that it cannot cancel the
“monarchy” of the Father, i.e. the truth that the Father is the source of the
divinity and the principle of its unity. Photius described this limit in the
formula which the Orthodox hold dear: “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father alone.” In his seventh thesis, however, Bolotov points out that this
formula itself is a theologoumenon; it makes clear the truth of the monarchy
of the Father which is implicit in the dogma but leaves in obscurity the truth
that the procession of the Spirit depends on the generation of the Word in
the bosom of the Father. For although the Spirit does originate in the Father
alone as the source of the divinity, He does not originate in the Father in
isolation but in the one only Father as the unique Father of the only-begotten
Son. The unique monarchy of the Father is manifested first of all in his
unique generation of the only-begotten Son and, paradoxically, it is this
latter generation which by its uniqueness guarantees that he is the unique
principle of the Spirit in a radically different mode in the eKiropevais. If the
dogma had to be stated in terms of the two theologoumena which develop
it, we should have to say: “I believe in the Holy Spirit who goes forth from
the one only Father insofar as He begets the only Son (ck (xovov tou IlaTpos,
(os tov Movoyevfi yevvcovTos, €KTTop€uo|xevov). These two ^€o\oych3p,eva are
so deeply rooted in the mystery of the procession of the consubstantial Third
Person that a genuine conciliar reception would probably have professed
them together dogmatically and we may hope that this will one day be done
when the loving reunion between East and West takes place. Unfortunately
it was impossible for this “ecumenical theologoumenon” (as Bolotov calls
it in his second thesis) with its two facets to be expressed in its radiant
simplicity and in its dogmatic unity, because since the patristic period each
facet has been framed in the narrower setting of one particular theology.
The mystery of the divine monarchy, understood as the incommunicable
hypostatic distinctive property of the Father in the trinitarian theology of
the Cappadocians and of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and St John Damascene,
led a dominant trend in the eastern tradition to regard the mediation of the
Son merely as a passive and quite non-causal condition of the procession of
the Spirit from the Father alone. For these Fathers the Spirit derives his
hypostatic existence from the Father alone but as the Third Person in the
trinitarian order he exists in the mode of existence peculiar to him in the
light of the fact that the Son was begotten as the Second Person in this
154 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
order. In the formulation: “The Spirit goes forth from the Father through
the Son ” (ck tou IlaTpos 81’ Yiov €K7ropeu6|xevov), this theological version
of the theologoumenon of the mediation of the Son was officially professed
at the Seventh Ecumenical Council by the Patriarch St Tarasius and ap-
proved by Pope Hadrian. From the characteristic apophatic perspective of
Cappadocian trinitarian theology, the Son’s mediation in the procession of
the Holy Spirit is seen as fulfilling the role of negative condition , not so
much in the procession of the Spirit who derives his whole existence from
the Father, as in his eternal manifestation which makes him known as the
Third Person. The subordination of the level of the eternal relationships in
which the Son and the Spirit are manifested to the level of their origin in
the Father by generation and €K7r6peixTi<> respectively, already foreshadows
the medieval Byzantine solution based on the apophatic differentiation be-
tween the unknowable essence of divinity in God and the manifestation of
the Persons of the Trinity in their eternal relationships in the form of
energies.
The understanding of the mystery of the monarchy in the trinitarian
theology of the Alexandrians and the Latins, on the contrary, namely as
consubstantial communion proceeding from the paternal source in the Son
and then, in him and from him, in the Spirit, led to the view that the
mediation of the Son is the relational presence of the paternal source ena-
bling the Son to share with the Father in communicating the divinity to the
Spirit. From this characteristic kataphatic perspective of western theology,
the role of the Son in the procession of the Spirit is that of a positive
condition. Moreover this procession is seen not as the original relationship
of €Kir6p€wi<5 from the Father in distinction from the genesis of the Son but
as the final moment in the communication of the consubstantial divinity
which “proceeds” (Trpoeuxi) in the sequence of the divine Persons (the
procession of the Son and then of the Spirit is spoken of generically).
This theological view of the theologoumenon of the Son’s mediation in
the procession of the Spirit found expression in Augustine’s formula: “The
Spirit proceeds from the Father as principle (principaliter) and, through the
non-temporal gift of the Father to the Son, from the Father and the Son in
communion ( communiter ).” The same theological view was expressed at the
Council of Ephesus in the ninth anathema of St Cyril of Alexandria: “The
Holy Spirit is not known as something alien to the essence of the unique
Son but he proceeds ('irpoeiai) naturally from that essence, in no sense
existing as any different from him in respect of identity of nature, even if
the Spirit is correctly known as having his own proper character” (PG 74,
444B).
A Roman Catholic view 155
The two theological statements of the mediation of the Son in the proces-
sion of the Spirit (ck tcxO IlaTpos 8ia tou Yiau €K7rop€u6|xevov; €k tou IlaTpds
kcu tou Yiou Trpolov = qui ex Patre Filioque procedit) are simply two vari-
ations of one and the same theologoumenon, attempting to explain the how,
either as a negative condition or as a positive condition. But when the
Church confesses the one or the other (ninth anathema of Ephesus, profes-
sion of St Tarasius at Nicea II), it is not claiming to make a theological
approach to the how into a dogma but simply wishing to recognize in its
faith the dogmatic fact which remains a mystery: the Spirit proceeds from
the Father only inasmuch as the latter begets the only Son. “In necessariis
unitas, in dubiis libertas.”
The Council of Florence, of course, proclaimed the substantial identity of
the 8ia tou Yiou and th e filioque. It may be objected that this Council was
not accepted in the East. But on this precise point it was supported by an
incontestable fact, one which Bolotov points out in his theses 19 to 27: the
Fathers lived in the communion of the undivided Church even though they
had different theological explanations of the nature of the mediation of the
Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, though not on the
fact of this mediation.
One of the Fathers of the Church, St Maximus the Confessor in the
seventh century, was able to produce a synthesis of patristic thought as a
whole. His life itself was a bridge between the East and the West. He
combined the two insights in a single extremely concentrated formula: “Just
as the Holy Spirit exists by nature according to the essence of the Father,
so too He is by nature according to the essence of the Son, inasmuch as He
goes forth essentially from the Father through/by reason of the begotten
Son” (PG 90, 672 CD).
But it is not just this attempted ecumenical synthesis which should warn
us against any unilateral dogmatizing of either of these trinitarian theologies,
but even more the uncertainties of their exponents.
On the Latin side we have the hesitation of St Hilary, with his acute mind
and familiarity with the eastern altera pars, in face of the seemingly obvious
utroquist position: “ ‘Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said:
All the Spirit tells you will be taken from what is mine’ (John 16:15). He
receives from the Son, therefore, he who is sent by him and proceeds from
the Father. I ask whether to receive from the Son and to proceed from the
Father are not the same thing. If we believe that there is a difference between
receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, it is nevertheless
certain that to receive from the Son and to receive from the Father are one
and the same thing” (PL 10, 215A).
156 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
On the eastern side it is the subtle St Gregory of Nyssa who refuses to
exclude completely the possibility of a causal role of the mediation of the
Son in the procession of the Spirit, sensing as he does the difficulty of
defining the eternal relationships which differentiate the divine Persons of
the Son and the Spirit in the order of the Trinity otherwise than by the
principle of the trinitarian causality of origin between them: “Just as the Son
is united to the Father and receives his being from him, without being
posterior to him in his existence, so the Holy Spirit in turn receives himself
from the Son who is contemplated prior to the hypostasis of the Spirit solely
from the standpoint of causality, although there is no room for temporal
intervals in this eternal divine life. Consequently, apart from the argument
of causality, the Holy Trinity contains within itself no distinction” (PG 45,
464).
As we listen to two such eminent representatives of the two trinitarian
theologies playing “devil’s advocate”, we realize the impotence of human
thought and language to convey the how of so great a mystery. Unity can
only come about, therefore, as we recentre the theologoumenon (with the
two divergent interpretations of the how) on the dogmatic fact to which it
bears witness: the Holy Spirit proceeds from the one only Father only
inasmuch as the latter is Father of the unique Son. As St John Damascene
says - and he is one Father of the Church unlikely to be suspected of
filioquism: “I say that God is always Father, having always his Word orig-
inating from himself and, through his Word, having his Spirit going forth
from himself” (PG 94, 1512 B).
When the ecumenical unity of East and West is rediscovered at the level
of trinitarian faith it will be possible to initiate a peaceful dialogue between
the two theologies of the how: the theology of relationships of origin which
the West canonized and sought to impose on the East at the Councils of
Lyons and Florence, and the theology of the eternal manifestation of the
Persons in their uncreated energies, to which the East gave dogmatic status
at the Palamite Councils of Constantinople. Any attempt to make unity of
faith in the Holy Spirit possible by the confrontation of these two systems
would inevitably lead the contemporary ecumenical dialogue into the same
cul-de-sac as those to which the former controversy led, even though each
side can boast of having converted a John Beccos or a Maximus the Greek
to its own view. The unity of faith is much too serious to be dealt with at
the level of theological confrontations, however interesting and valuable
these may be. Those who engage in such confrontations must know when
to bow out with a nod in the direction of the fact of faith which takes
precedence over their debates, provides their basis but also radically tran-; f
A Roman Catholic view 157
scends them. The decisive word rests with the People of God assisted by the
Holy Spirit through its ministries and gifts.
What follows is a summary of my position which I believe not to be in
contradiction to the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
I differentiate between three levels in the question of the filioque :
1. The dogmatic core, implicit in the consubstantiality of the Spirit as the
Third Person of the Trinity as confessed in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan
Creed. This dogmatic core, acknowledged by the concordant voices of the
Fathers of East and West, may be formulated as follows: the Spirit goes
forth from the Father inasmuch as only Father, therefore inasmuch as He
is He who begets the only Son. This dogmatic core expresses two trinitarian
truths unanimously affirmed by the Fathers of both East and West: on the
one hand the monarchy of the Father, and on the other hand the respective
order of the Persons of the Son and the Spirit as originating in him. At this
level nothing is said concerning the “how” of this order. In the ecumenical
consensus of the undivided Church this “how” was not considered a neces-
sitas requiring unitas.
2. The two theologoumena, Cappadocian-Byzantine and Latin- Alexan-
drian. In these an attempt is made to state the “how” of the trinitarian order
between the Second and Third Persons:
- either by regarding the generation of the Son as negative condition of the
fact that the eKiropewis of the Spirit, of which the Father is the unique
cause, is not a second generation; the Cappadocian-Byzantine theologou-
menon is stated as follows: the Spirit goes forth from the Father alone
through the Son; in Greek: €K |xovou tov IlaTpoq 8ia tou YioO eKiropevo-
ixevov;
- or by regarding the generation of the Son as positive condition (cause,
but not as primary principle) of the consubstantial procession of the Spirit
in the communion of Father and Son; this Latin- Alexandrian theologou-
menon is stated as follows: the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the
Son; in Greek: €k tou IlaTpos Kai tou Yiou 7Tpot6v; in Latin: qui ex Patre
Filioque procedit.
Ecumenical agreement can be established between East and West only if
each of the churches acknowledges that the trinitarian formula to which it
clings is only a theologoumenon. In other words, that (a) it is only one
expression of the dogmatic core (cf. previous section) implicit in the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed to which it adds nothing normative for
faith (even in such a liturgical usage as that of the Creed in the Roman
Mass); (b) the theologoumenon of the other church, attested by a venerable
patristic tradition which could not be discredited by its own theologoumenon,
158 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
is neither heretical nor less orthodox; (c) the two theologoumena, professed
by Fathers who lived in communion in the undivided Church, are intended
to express the same divine reality, even if it is in a way which is beyond our
understanding, which is so limited in face of the ineffable mystery of the
Trinity.
We must not forget that both traditions wished to safeguard the same
mystery of the trinitarian monarchy, each by means of its own theologou-
menon. As long ago as 1904 it was said by Mgr Sergius, later Patriarch of
Moscow, with reference to the dialogue between the Orthodox and the Old
Catholics: “For the Old Catholics, to say that the Son and the Spirit in their
eternal procession are utterly independent of one another, that they are not
in contact with one another, would mean violating the very monarchy which
is so vigorously defended in the East.”
In fact, as we have seen, these two theologoumena are merely two par-
ticular theological formulations of the same ecumenical theologoumenon.
They were worked out by the Fathers from two key words whose semantic
connotations were not at all the same in Greek and in Latin but which an
imperfect ecumenical meeting between East and West caused to be taken
as equivalent, thus making it impossible for there to be any complementarity
between the two approaches to the trinitarian mystery. The two words are
the Greek €K7rop€U€(rftai and the Latin procedere. We are accustomed in
French (and in English) to translate both by the verb “to proceed”, itself
derived from the Latin. But the apparently obvious identity proves on closer
examination to be fallacious.
In Greek eKTropevopuxi is the middle voice of eK'iropeua) which in turn
derives from the verb Tropevo) meaning “to make to go”, “to convey”. It is
connected with the noun Tropos “passage” (cf. Bosphoros: “straits”) and by
the verb 'iretpco “to go quite through”, with the root Trep or Trap which has
given the preposition per in Latin and par in French. In the middle voice
Tropeuo|ioa, implying the subject in its action, consequently signifies “to
pass”, “to go across”, intransitive, or, in a verb etymologically closer to the
Greek word: “se porter” in the sense of “se transporter”, “to betake one-
self”. For in fact the Latin verb portare has the same meaning and etymo-
logical root as the Greek verb iropeuo). The Greek form of the Nicene Creed,
€K tou IlaTpos eKiropevoixevov, should not therefore have been translated
by qui ex Patre procedit but, more exactly, by qui ex Patre se exportat, which
might be rendered in French by “qui se porte hors du Pere”, “qui sort du
Pere”, in English perhaps “who goes forth out of the Father”, “who issues
from the Father”. Might we suggest to our Orthodox brethren in the West,
who in their liturgy use languages derived from Latin, to try to translate
A Roman Catholic view 159
with this kind of rigorous striving for precision the Greek formula of the
Creed, and not to borrow, however convenient this may be, the derivatives
of the Latin term procedere, which in the triadology of the Fathers has
become a technical term and bears a meaning which can imply a flioque
which the very meaning of the Greek formula inherently excludes?
If the Greek term eKTropeakcrftoa as such denotes a passage out of that
from which one issues in distinction from it, the Latin term procedere has
the inverse connotation. Cedere means “to go from by giving place to”, “to
retire”, hence in French “ceder”, “to yield”, “give way” and, as in English,
“to cede”. With the prefix pro which means “forward”, the form procedere
means to go forward giving place to that from which one moves away and
to which by that very fact one remains connected. The head of a procession,
for instance, as it advances, gives way to the cortege which keeps it connected
with its starting point. St Thomas Aquinas pointed out that the Latin term
processio is the most general there is to designate any relation of origin: as
a line proceeds from a point, a ray from the sun, the stream from the spring
(la, q.36, art. 2). In the examples he gives, what is expressed is not, as in
the Greek eKTropeixris, a passage out of the origin which distinguishes what
comes out from it, but the progression starting from the origin of what
moves forward while maintaining with it a homogeneous link of communion:
it is the same stroke which proceeds from the point into the line, the same
light which proceeds from the sun in the ray, the same water which proceeds
from the spring into the stream. The origin is not apprehended first of all as
the principle from which a distinction issues but as the starting-point of a
continuous process.
The same meaning as the Latin procedere is found in the Greek verb
Trpoxtopctv which comes from x^peiv; like the Latin cedere , this means “to
go from by giving place to” and is connected, it would appear, with the
same etymological root (x^petv, xfipos, x<*£eiv; cedere, cadere) meaning
“leaving a space between”. The formula of the Latin Fathers qui a Patre
Filioque procedit would therefore have to be rendered in Greek by diro tov
IlaTpos kcu tctO Ylou Trpoxwpojv. It is a striking fact that the Greek trinitarian
term TrepixcopTioxs was translated into Latin in the Middle Ages by circu-
mincessio , but that they did not as a consequence think of rendering the
cognate term processio by the Greek 7T€pixa>pTicris, which is its exact equiv-
alent. We speak of trinitarian “circumincession” because the divine Persons
are not separated from one another because the same consubstantial being
proceeds in each from the or those Person(s) to which that Person remains
linked in the trinitarian order. We speak therefore of the “procession” of
the Spirit because in him the divine nature advances from the Father and
160 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
the Son, in relation to whom it maintains him in consubstantial communion
according to the order of the trinitarian perichoresis in which the divine
nature is manifested. As V. Lossky would put it: “In the order of the divine
manifestation, the hypostases are not respective images of the personal
diversities, but of the common nature: the Father reveals his nature by the
Son and the divinity of the Son is manifested by the Holy Spirit.” Manifes-
tation does not mean here temporal economy but procession within the
eternal immanent movement of trinitarian communion in which the divine
nature advances from the Father into the Son and from the Father and the
Son into the Holy Spirit.
The “ecumenical theologoumenon” was formulated in fact in the seventh
century by St Maximus the Confessor: “Just as the Holy Spirit exists by
nature according to the essence of the Father, so too he is by nature
according to the essence of the Son, inasmuch as he goes forth essentially
from the Father through/by reason of the begotten Son” (PG 90, 672 CD).
It might be formulated as an explication of the normative formula of the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, in the complementarity of Greek and
Latin trinitarian language. This would give something like: The Holy Spirit,
by going forth out of the one only Father who begets the unique Son,
proceeds in origin from both; in Greek: ck |xovov tou IlaTpos tov Movoyevfj
yevvojvTos eK'iropeuojxevov kou d|xc})oiv 'Trpox<opd>v; in Latin: Ex unico Patre
unicum Filium generante se exportans, ab utroque procedit. It will be noticed
that I interpret part of each of the two theologoumena in such a way as to
make it compatible with the other, but I believe there is a good basis in
each of their two traditions for doing so. I translate the ck p,ovou tou IlaTpds
by “from the one only Father” rather than by “from the Father alone”. In
support of this I refer to Bolotov’s seventh thesis: “The Fathers of the
Church say that the Son is the ‘Unique born of the Unique’, but avoid this
expression when speaking of the Spirit, as if to prevent the thesis that ‘the
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone ’ from being set in antithesis to
the theological idea ‘and shines through the Son’.” By preferring the trans-
lation “from the one only Father who begets the unique Son”, we consider
we restore to the theologoumenon the dogmatic transparency which its
polemical connotation may have obscured. In the same way, I express the
Latin filioque not by qui ex Patre Filioque procedit , but by ab utroque
procedit, which I render in French by “qui procede a partir des deux” - “in
origin from both”. Even though the actual phrase qui ex Patre Filioque
procedit is found in St Augustine, the latter always recognized that the
character of principle expressed in the Latin ex referred only to the Father.
Moreover, providence decreed that the formula which passed into Roman
A Roman Catholic view 161
liturgical practice was not qui ex Patre filioque procedit but qui a Patre
filioque procedit , in which the Latin ab locates the filioque on the level of a
condition and not of cause as primary principle, and so does not set it in
contradiction to the ex Unico Patre. Relieved in this way of their polemical
narrowness, the two theologoumena convey their profounder meaning as
mutually necessary expressions of one and the same ecumenical truth of
faith.
3. The third level is that of the two medieval systems, the scholastic and
the Palamite, each claiming to explain the “how” of the trinitarian order
between the Second and the Third Persons:
- either by radicalizing the apophatic character of the eastern theologou-
menon and explaining that the Son is the condition of the Spirit only with
reference to his eternal manifestation as energy negatively distinct from
his origin as Person in the Father alone;
- or by rationalizing the kataphatic character of the western theologoume-
non and explaining that the Son is the cause of the procession of the Spirit
because, together with the Father in their reciprocal relationship, he
constitutes the unique principle of the relation of origin of the Person of
the Spirit.
Whatever the value of these two theologies and the patristic basis which
underlies them both, they were systematized in a setting of estrangement
and controversy between East and West which made them increasingly
resistant to each other throughout the unhappy history of the quarrel be-
tween them. On this point the churches must not let themselves be im-
prisoned by theological developments, however venerable. Communion
must be restored by focusing on ecumenical confession of the dogmatic core,
in recognition that it is to this alone that their respective theologoumena
bear witness. Once unity in the confession of the trinitarian faith has thus
been recovered, a new climate of love will make it possible for the mind of
the Church to express in authentic ecumenical consensus the explicit dog-
matic truth which the western Councils of Lyons and Florence and the
Palamite Councils of Constantinople attempted to formulate unilaterally.
It is already possible to glimpse the common truth contained in the me-
dieval theologies of subsisting relations and manifestation as energies, if one
returns to their common source - St Gregory of Nazianzen. St Gregory the
Theologian was in fact the first Father of the Church to express the trinitarian
mystery in terms of relations and manifestation. But far from opposing these
two terms as the medieval theologies sought to do by speaking of subsisting
relations and of energetic manifestation, St Gregory considers them as strictly
equivalent. “What then is lacking to the Spirit to be the Son? For if nothing
162 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
is lacking, he would be the Son. We say that he lacks nothing, for nothing
is lacking to God; but it is the difference of the manifestation , so to speak,
or of the relation between them which creates the difference of their name.
Nothing is lacking to the Son, either, to be the Father - for filiation is not
a lack - but for all that he is not the Father” (Fifth Theological Oration,
9,1-7). Even if, for St Gregory, there flows from the trinitarian relations the
order in which the trinitarian Persons commune with one another in the
same consubstantial divinity, these relations do not for all that signify degrees
in the divinity but simply posit the difference of the names of the Father,
the Son and the Spirit in their personal “proprieties” - distinctive charac-
teristics.1 “77ie Son is not the Father , since there is one only Father, but he
is what the Father is; the Spirit is not the Son by the fact that he is from God
(the Father), since there is but one Only-begotten, but he is what the Son is.
The Three are One from the point of view of the divinity and the One is
Three from the point of view of the ‘proprieties’ ” (ibid. 9, 15-19).
If, however, for St Gregory the Theologian the distinctive characteristics
which differentiate relationally the trinitarian Persons are not names of the
one and indivisible divine substance, they are not for all that names of
“energy”. “Father is neither a name of substance nor a name of energy; it
is a name of relation, of the how the Father is in respect to the Son and the
Son in respect to the Father” (Third Theological Oration, 16, 12-14). Even
if the trinitarian relationships do not appear ad extra except in the energies
by which the Living God naturally expresses the hypostatic character of his
liberty which is love, they are already, within the bosom of the consubstantial
perichoresis, the eternal manifestation of the difference of the divine Persons
in respect to one another. The Father is manifested as Father by begetting
the Son and by that fact the Son is manifested as the Son of the Father who
is all that the Father is; the Father is manifested as one only Father of the
unique Son by causing the Spirit to go forth through the Son and by that
fact the Spirit is manifested as being the Spirit of the Son who is all the Son
is. (We translate the 8ia t av Yiov by “de par”, “through”; in the New
Testament, at Rom 12:1; 15:30; I Cor 7:2; II Cor 10:1 and frequently, 8ia
with the genitive means “through”, “by reason of”, both “by” and “for” in
the sense of “for the love of God”.)
The Holy Spirit who comes forth in his personal originality as Spirit from
1 The only truly catholic and orthodox sense that the expression “subsisting relation”
can bear is that already expressed by St John Damascene: “Each of the trinitarian
Persons contains the divine unity by his relation to the others no less than by his
relation to himself’ (PG 94, 828 C).
A Roman Catholic view 163
the one only Father of the Only-begotten through and by reason of this
unique Begotten, proceeds in origin from the two in the consubstantial
perichoresis of the Trinity, while being, by his relation to the Son, what the
Son is, just as the Son, by his relation to the Father, is what the Father is,
that is to say, God.
THEOLOGICAL PROPOSALS
TOWARDS THE RESOLUTION
OF THE FILIOQUE CONTROVERSY
JURGEN MOLTMANN
The original text
A resolution of the external, magisterial, canonical and liturgical problem
of th efilioque can be found if the western churches recognize, where they
have not already done so, that th efilioque clause is a later interpolation into
the credal statement of an ecumenical council. The intention of th efilioque
in the West - an intention which originally involved no polemic against the
East - was merely to make more precise the trinitarian affirmations of the
Creed. Similarly in the East, the Creed’s statements were made more precise
with the help of the interpretative gloss, €k jxovou toO IlaTpos - though
admittedly this clarification worked in the opposite direction from the west-
ern. If, then, so far as the substance of the issue is concerned - and regardless
of the particular ecclesiastical and political motives involved at that time -
we are concerned here with interpretative formulae, but not with attempts
at unilateral correction of the common Creed, then the interpolation can
also be withdrawn and treated as an interpretation of the original text in a
particular situation of theological controversy. This does not prejudice the
theological discussion of “filioquist” and “monopatrist” understandings of the
Trinity. With the withdrawal of th efilioque an ecclesiastical controversy can
be ended; but at the same time a theological enquiry into the doctrine of
the Trinity must be opened up. The one makes no sense without the other.
What the original text leaves open
The Creed avoids any comment upon the participation of the Son in the
procession of the Spirit from the Father. It also says nothing about the
relations between the Son and the Spirit. This reserve may be comprehen-
sible in the context of the contemporary struggle against the pneumatomachi,
• Jurgen Moltmann (Reformed) is professor of systematic theology, University of
Tubingen, Federal Republic of Germany.
Theological proposals 165
who understood the Spirit as a creature, subordinate to the Son. At any
rate, it cannot be interpreted as a dogmatic decision of the conciliar Fathers
against any participation of the Son in the going-forth of the Spirit from the
Father. Their concern was to emphasize the complete divinity of the Holy
Spirit, and that was why they spoke only of his procession from the Father.
Earlier formulations of the Cappadocian theologians most certainly speak
of a relation of the Son to the Holy Spirit in order to understand how the
Holy Spirit is both “Spirit of the Son” and “Spirit of Christ”. From a
dogmatic standpoint, however, it can only be seen as a weakness that neither
in the Creed of 381 nor later was a binding formula found to settle the
question of the part played by the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit
from the Father, or alternatively in the shaping of the personal identity of
the Spirit. Many eastern and western theologians have accordingly charac-
terized the affirmations of the Creed concerning the Holy Spirit as incom-
plete, and recommended the attempt to find a new, common formula.
It is in the question thus left open in 381 that the theological differences
between the triadology of the eastern Church and the trinitarian doctrine of
the western have their substantial root. For this reason, the separation
between the churches cannot be overcome simply by returning to the original
text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, but only through a common
answer to the question of the relation of the Son to the Holy Spirit, and of
the Holy Spirit to the Son.
God remains true to himself
Before we can look for the common answer to this question, one premise
must be clarified. It has to do with the relation of the divine Trinity to the
economy of salvation. This problem is often posed in terms of the relation
between the “economic” and the “immanent” Trinity. Yet this terminology
is imprecise, for it appears to speak of two different trinities. The truth of
the matter is that we can speak only of the one Trinity and of its economy
of salvation.
From this it follows that the divine Trinity cannot appear in the economy
of salvation as something other than it is in itself. Therefore one cannot
posit temporal trinitarian relations within the economy of salvation which
are not grounded in the primal trinitarian relations. This means that the
relation between the Son and the Holy Spirit cannot be restricted to the
temporal sending of the Holy Spirit through Christ. Rather there must be
an inner-trinitarian basis for the temporal sending of the Spirit through
Christ, the Son of God. Otherwise we should have to suppose some kind of
contradiction in God himself. Even with all the necessary apophatic pres-
166 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
ervation of the mystery and the unsearchable freedom of God, we must for
God’s sake hold fast to this, that God cannot contradict himself: “God
remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself’ (II Tim. 2:13). If God cannot
contradict himself, then he remains true to himself precisely and especially
in his economy of salvation, for it is that which reveals him himself, and
offers access to him. One cannot say, therefore, that something holds true
in God’s revelation, but not in God’s being. His truth is his self-consistency,
and it is this that makes him the Faithful and Trustworthy, in whom human
beings can believe with their whole heart.
The procession of the Spirit from the Father
The Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” (John 15:26). The Father
“breathes forth” the Holy Spirit in eternity. The Holy Spirit does not
proceed from the Son. So the interpretation is correct which states that the
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “alone”. This “alone” is meant to
designate the uniqueness of the procession of the Spirit from the Father,
and to guard against any blurring or confusing of the relations within the
Trinity. The singularity of the procession of the Spirit from the Father, and
with it the uniqueness of the Father as the prime source of the Spirit, has
also never been contested by the theologians of the western Church. Al-
though their filioque has been the occasion of this misunderstanding, they
have never in any way seen the Son as “competing” with the Father in the
matter of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The filioque was never directed
against the “monarchy” of the Father, albeit at the same time this formula
was intended to counter tendencies to subordinationism in the doctrine of
the Trinity, and to a subordinationist dissolution of the Trinity in its own
economy of salvation. It is not disputed in the West that the Son (John
16:27) and the Holy Spirit (John 15:26) both come forth in their different
respective ways from the Father, that the Father is therefore the primary
source of both - in their distinct fashions - and that both the Son and the
Spirit glorify the Father in eternity. The unoriginated Father was always
recognized as the “first person” in the Trinity. And where the Father was
called auTO'&eos the West too found it impossible to apply this term to the
Son and the Holy Spirit. For this reason, the formula which speaks of the
procession of the Spirit from the Father, without the addition of the filioque,
should be accepted.1
1 See also G. S. Hendry, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, London, Westminster,
1965, pp. 30ff, with his critique of Barth’s retention and reformulation of the filioque .
Similarly, A. I. C. Heron, “ ‘Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son’: the
Problem of the Filioque” , Scottish Journal of Theology, 1972, pp. 149-166.
Theological proposals 167
On the other hand, the exclusive gloss “from the Father alone ” should be
understood to refer only to the procession of the Spirit, i.e. to his divine
existence ( hypostasis ), but not to his inner- trinitarian personal form ( Gestalt )
in his relations to the Father and to the Son. This is demonstrated by the
argument of the eastern Church for the interpretative addition of the “alone”
itself: that God the Father is the one cause, ground and source of deity.
This argument shows only that the Holy Spirit receives his divine existence
and his divine being “solely” from the “source of divinity”, which is the
Father. Nothing is so far said here about the relation of the Father as Father
or as “breather-forth” to that which he “breathes” or brings forth, namely
the Spirit. Nor is anything said concerning the personal form (Gestalt) which
the Holy Spirit receives in his relation to the Father and to the Son. It is not
because of the Fatherhood of the Father, but for the sake of the monarchy
of the first person of the Trinity, that the filioque was and is contested - and
indeed with justice, so long as the filioque is set in this context.
The procession of the Spirit from the Father of the Son
The Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father”, affirms the Creed. The first
person of the Trinity is however the Father only in respect of the Son, that
is, in the eternal begetting of the Son. God the Father is always the Father
of the Son. He is never simply “universal Father”, like Zeus, Jupiter, Vishnu
or Wotan. He is not called “Father” merely because he is the unique cause
on whom all things depend. Nor is it for the sake of the authority and power
which all authorities and powers in heaven and on earth, in religion, state
and family, hold from him. It is solely and exclusively in the eternal begetting
of the eternal Son that God shows himself as “the Father”. He is uniquely
“the Father of Jesus Christ”, and only through Christ, the only-begotten
Son, and in the fellowship of this “firstborn” among many brothers and
sisters, is he also “our Father”. In order to maintain this crucial distinction,
we propose to speak, thoughtfully and emphatically, of “the Father of the
Son”.
The Father is in eternity solely the Father of the Son. He is not the Father
of the Spirit. The procession of the Spirit from the Father therefore presup-
poses the eternal begetting of the Son by the Father, for it is only in it that
the Father is and is shown to be the Father. Just as “Son” is a theological
and not a cosmological category, as became clear in the Arian controversy,
so too is “Father” a theological one, not cosmological or even political/
religious. The doctrine of the Trinity makes this unmistakeably clear.
“The Spirit is the third urrooTaais of the Holy Trinity. His being presup-
poses the existence of the Father and also of the Son, since the Holy Spirit
168 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
proceeds from the Father, and since the Father is Father only of the Son.
Accordingly, as soon as God the 7rpo6o\eus tou IIv€U|xaTo<; is named Father ,
he is thought of as having a Son.” 2
If then God as Father breathes forth the Holy Spirit, the Spirit proceeds
from the Father of the Son. His procession therefore presupposes (1) the
generation of the Son, (2) the existence of the Son, and (3) the mutual
relation of the Father and the Son. The Son is the logical presupposition
and the material precondition for the procession of the Spirit from the
Father, but he is not an additional accompanying source for him. The
procession of the Spirit from the Father must be substantially distinguished
from the generation of the Son by the Father, and yet related to it.
If, furthermore, the Holy Spirit does not only proceed from the Father
because the Father is the “source of divinity”, but because he is the Father
of the only-begotten Son, then he derives also from the Fatherhood of God,
that is, from the relation of the Father to the Son. While it is quite wrong
to draw from this the further conclusion that the Spirit proceeds “from the
Father and the Son”, one must hold equally firmly to the fact that the Spirit
proceeds from the Father in the eternal presence of the Son, and that
therefore the Son is not without a part in the matter. “The eternal Son is
not a stranger to the procession of the Holy Spirit” (P. Boris Bobrinskoy).
The Son is eternally with the Father, and in him. The Father is never and
acts nowhere without the Son.
“Since the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father during the existence of
the Son, imdpxovTos tou Ylou, and since the Father and Son are to be
thought of as immediately accompanying and in contact with each other, the
moment of the ever-present procession of the Holy Spirit is so understood
that the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father is already recognized by the
Son as a complete hypostasis.” 3
“The Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father as a complete hypostasis
comes through the Son, is manifested through the Son, and reveals through
him his own being which he has from the Father. He shines out through the
Son.” 4
Both Orthodox and western theologians should be able to agree with
these expositions of B. Bolotov’s, for they protect the procession of the
Spirit “from the Father alone”, and yet bring the Son so closely together
2 B. Bolotov, “Thesen iiber das Filioque" . Von einem russischen Theologen, Revue
Internationale de Theologie, 24, 1898, p. 692.
3 Ibid., pp. 694f.
4 Ibid., p. 695.
Theological proposals 169
with the Father that the relation of the Son to the Spirit is made directly
apparent. This leads to the proposal that in the interpretation of the text of
the Creed we should speak of
"the Holy Spirit , who proceeds from the Father of the Son".
What the Holy Spirit receives from the Son
According to the line of thought so far developed, a participation of the
Son in the procession of the Spirit from the Father can be spoken of only
indirectly, that is, as mediated through the Fatherhood of the Father. A
direct relation of the Son to the Spirit cannot yet be articulated. Statements
that the Son is not “strange to” or not “without part in” the procession of
the Spirit use double negatives to circumscribe what either cannot be posi-
tively expressed, or ought to be left unspoken. Yet this remains
unsatisfactory.
In order to advance from indirect circumscription to direct affirmation,
let us start from the well-known sentence of Epiphanius, according to which
the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and “receives” from the Son.
We understand this in an inner-trinitarian fashion, and not as if the Spirit
“proceeded” from the Father in eternity, and thereby derived his origi-
nation, but “received” from the Son purely within time.
If we take the sentence as describing the original relations within the
Trinity, we must ask further: As what does the Holy Spirit proceed from
the Father, and what is it that he receives from the Son? Our proposal is
this: the Holy Spirit receives from the Father his own perfect divine existence
(vrroaTacris, tmap^is), and obtains from the Son his relational form (Gestalt)
(ei5o<;, 7tp6ct(d7tov). Just as the procession of the divine existence of the Spirit
is to be ascribed to the Father , so too must we recognize that his form, his
“face”, is stamped by the Father and by the Son. That is why he is also called
“the Spirit of the Son”. The hypostatic procession of the Spirit from the
Father is not to be separated from his relational form by which he is linked
to the Father and the Son, though the two must be clearly distinguished.
When the theology of the eastern Church declares that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father “alone” because the Father is “the source of
divinity”, it only expresses the divinity of the wtoo-tcxo-is of the Holy Spirit
over against ever kind of divine creation, but not his inner-trinitarian and
interpersonal form.
The distinction here introduced between xmocnavis and irpoacoTrov, or in
Latin between persona and facies , may at first sight seem surprising. But it
does make it possible to differentiate between the relation of the Holy Spirit
to his divine source and his relations to the Father and to the Son. If
170 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
xhrocTTacris is translated as persona , the translation imports over and above
the literal meaning of the Greek (which can be rendered as modus subsis-
tence) an additional relational character. This relational form of the person
must probably be rendered in Greek by ttpoctojttov. Thus the western con-
cept of persona includes both the aspects which are indicated by vttootcojis
as TpoTios uTidp^ecos and by uTrooTao-is as TrpoaojTrov. The first brings to
expression the relation of the uTrooraa-is to the divinity of God, the second
the relation of one imoaTacris to the other uTrocrTaaeis. To put it in western
terms, the divine persons subsist in respect of the divinity of God; they exist
in respect of each other. The western tradition has developed this differ-
entiation in the doctrine of the trinitarian relations , according to which
relations and persons are to be understood as complementary: the relations
in the persons, and the persons in the relations. The eastern tradition has
approached the substance of the matter which concerns us here both in its
teaching concerning the inner-trinitarian manifestation of the triune God and
in that of the inner-trinitarian energies. These post-Nicene trinitarian doc-
trines certainly do not all lie on the same level, but the insights they offer
may be drawn upon to clarify our problem.
In this connection, we understand uTrocrraais and \nrap£is in such a way
that they express the being of the Holy Spirit in respect of his divine origin;
while the concepts of ttpooxdttov and et8os refer to his form in his trinitarian
relations. If urroorao-is is an ontological concept, form is an esthetic one.
They do not compete with or replace each other, but are mutually
complementary.
Pure form is the highest beauty, for beauty lies in the perfect form, so far
as this form is expression of inner substance and evocative of love. Form
comes to be seen when it is illuminated and reflects the light. Then form is
transfigured. For Paul, the object of such transfiguration is commonly the
“face” (TTpoacoirov). The glory of God shines in “the face of Christ” (II Cor.
4:6). The glory of the Lord shines upon us all “with unveiled face” (II Cor.
3:17). At last we shall see God “face to face” (I Cor. 13:13). If we speak of
the “form” of the Holy Spirit, we mean by this his “face”, as it is manifested
in his looking towards the Father and the Son and in their looking towards
him. This is the Holy Spirit in his inner-trinitarian manifestation, as the icon
of Rublev so marvellously portrays it.
The procession of the existence of the Spirit has a substantial, but of course
not a temporal, priority over his reception of his form in the relations we
have described; for the existence of the recipient logically precedes his
receiving. Therefore procession and receiving are not the same. If procession
refers to the unique relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father as “source of
Theological proposals 171
divinity”, receiving describes the form of the Spirit as from the Father and
the Son. In the description of the relational form of the Holy Spirit, the
filioque has its proper place. It must however be kept quite distinct from the
procession of the Spirit. The Syrian Orthodox Church of South India ex-
presses this with particular clarity in its prayer for the feast of Pentecost:
“When we say ‘Father’, the Son and the Holy Spirit come from him.
When we say ‘Son’, the Father and the Holy Spirit are recognized through
him. When we say Ruho (Spirit), the Father and the Son are perfect in him.
The Father is the Creator, unbegotten; the Son is begotten and does not
beget; the Holy Spirit (Ruho) proceeds from the Father and receives from
the Son the person and the being of the Father.” 5
So we recommend for the interpretation of the text of the Creed:
11 The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father of the Son, and receives
his form from the Father and from the Son .”
The problem of generalizations in the doctrine of the Trinity
The “begetting” of the Son by the Father and the “procession” of the
| Spirit from the Father are different. If both of these are subsumed under
the general category of processio, and “two processions” are spoken of, the
I danger of such abstraction becomes immediately apparent. The concrete
i particularity of the Son in relation to the Father and of the Spirit in his
! relation to the Father is overlooked. It is then only too easy to form a
conception of the Spirit as a second Son, or of the Son as another Spirit.
For this reason we ought not at this point to construct any general category
to cover both the begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit. We
must remain concrete, and tell first of the one, then of the other. We are
not dealing with two different “comings forth”, or with two different
“events”.
The “procession” of the Spirit from the Father and the “receiving” of his
inner-trinitarian form from the Father and the Son are also distinct. The
i western filioque blurs this difference. This can only too easily give the
! impression that the Holy Spirit has two sources of his existence, in the
Father and in the Son. For this reason we ought not to “sum up” the matter
as is done with the formula “and from the Son”, which leaves unexplained
! what in the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and what from the Son.
5 Quoted from N. J. Thomas, Die syrisch-orthodoxe Kirche der siidindischen
i Thomas-Christen, Geschichte - Kirchenverfassung - Lehre, Wurzburg, 1967, p. 67. In
1 Syriac the Greek word ousia is used for “substance” and the Syriac q’nomo for
I “person”.
172 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
Again, we must remain concrete, and can only tell successively of the
relation of the Father to the Holy Spirit and of the Son to the Holy Spirit.
The justified rejection of the undifferentiated filioque formula was de-
fended by Orthodox theologians by appeal to the monarchy of the Father,
but this too is in its own way undifferentiated. Certainly the uniqueness of
the Father over against the Son and the Holy Spirit can be underlined
through the Cappadocians’ introduction into the doctrine of the Trinity of
the Aristotelian concept of “cause” (ama, apx"h) - though even in the early
Church this was not undisputed. If, however, the Father is simply described
as the “cause” of the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the concrete
difference between the generation of the one and the procession of the other
is again blurred. It is as Father of the Son, not as monarch of the godhead,
that the Father in eternity “breathes forth” the Holy Spirit. The admission
of the category of “cause” is of course understandable in the context of the
warding-off of the undifferentiating doctrine of th q filioque’, but it conceals
similar dangers in itself. It carries over the universal relation of God to the
created world, his universal monarchy, into the inner-trinitarian life of God.
But we cannot use “monopatrism” to drive out dangerous “filioquism” from
the doctrine of the Trinity without running into fresh difficulties. The concept
of the sole causality of the Father also threatens to blur the concrete
inner-trinitarian relations. The category of “cause” can therefore only be
used here in a qualified sense: it is not a suitable general concept to cover
inner-trinitarian generation and spiration, begetting and procession.
Basically, in the Cappadocian doctrine of the Trinity both deity and
personal relations coincide in the first person. The first person is the “source
of deity” as well as the Father of the Son and the Breather-forth of the
Spirit. Thus the first person must guarantee both the unity of the godhead
and the threefoldness of the persons. If these different senses are not strictly
distinguished from each other, the result is either the disintegration of the
Trinity into tritheism, or the subordinationist reduction of the Trinity to
monotheism. It would be helpful for this reason to remove the concept of
the “first cause” from the doctrine of the Trinity altogether, and to concen-
trate upon the presentation of the inter-personal relations; for in them, the
logical priority of the Father is self-evident.
Dangers also lie in the doctrine of the three wocrTdcjeis or persons in the
Trinity, for it applies one and the same concept to the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit, and so awakens the impression that they are homogeneous
equivalents, namely as xmoordo-eis, persons or modes of being. These gen-
eral concepts obscure the concrete differences between the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit. They differ not only in their mutual relations, but also
Theological proposals 173
in respect of their personhood, even if the person is to be grasped in its
relations and not apart from them. If one wishes to remain concrete, one
must apply a different concept of “person” respectively to the Father, the
Son and the Spirit. Their designation as “divine persons” already contains
within itself a tendency to modalism. The general categories of TrnooTao-is
or person bring to the fore the common and similar in them, not the
particular and distinct.
Finally, it is well known how strongly the doctrine of the divine being,
shared by all three vmxjTdcreis or persons, threatens to dissolve the trini-
tarian differences away in a Sabellian, modalistic, and ultimately Unitarian
fashion. The logical and epistemological priority given to the doctrine of the
being of God in the West from Thomas Aquinas onwards had the effect of
putting the doctrine of the Trinity itself out of action, and rendering it
insignificant. The initial and prior thought of the simplicity of the divine
being relegated that of the threefoldness to a secondary place. That is why
the teaching on the Trinity in the western Church right down to Karl Barth
and Karl Rahner has a tendency to modalism. This can only be changed if
the indispensable thought of the unity of God is expressed in trinitarian
terms, and no longer dominated by the divine being or the divine lordship.
The unity of God rests in the tri unity of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit. It neither precedes nor follows the triunity.
From this brief survey of the dangers brought by the introduction of
general concepts to the doctrine of the Trinity, one must conclude that no
such subsuming general categories ought to be applied to it. In the life of
the immanent Trinity everything is singular. Only because everything in God
is singular can it be recognized in the ways and works of God as originating
for anything else. In the doctrine of the immanent Trinity, one ought in
principle only to relate, but not subsume. One must remain concrete, for
abstractions bristle with heresies, as history has shown. By contrast, the
foundation of orthodoxy lies in relating differentiation. At the centre of
Christian theology stands the eternal history, which the triune God is in
himself. All recounting requires time. For the relating of the triune God,
man needs his own time. That corresponds better to the eternal presence of
God than the abstraction in concepts which dissolve time away, but only
insinuate a timeless eternity.
THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
FROM THE FATHER AND HIS RELATION
TO THE SON, AS THE BASIS
OF OUR DEIFICATION AND ADOPTION
DUMITRU STANILOAE
The point of view this paper sets out stems from the positions taken by
Fr Garrigues on the Catholic side, and Prof. Moltmann on the Protestant
side (cf. the present volume). In my opinion, their expositions indicate the
beginning of a movement in the question of the procession of the Holy
Spirit, a question that for centuries has remained fixed in the rigid affirmation
of the difference between the eastern and the western formulas. Their
viewpoints seem to me to be a positive step towards the eastern doctrine
even if, in some ways, an insufficient one. I shall therefore try to set out the
eastern point of view in a positive way in order to bring a new contribution
to the union of eastern and western Christianity on this subject.
Father Garrigues’ view: a step in the direction of reconciliation
The step forward which I believe can be seen in Fr Garrigues’ exposition
is to be found in the fact that he considers Bolotov’s formula, “The Holy
Spirit proceeds from the only Father as He begets the only Son”,* 1 to be
acceptable for the Catholic Church. Like Bolotov, Fr Garrigues believes
that this proposition reconciles, in a formula which could be accepted as a
point of faith by both parties, the affirmation that the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father alone, which he considers to be an eastern theologoumenon
seeking to explain the common faith which is expressed in the Niceno-
Constantinopolitan Creed by the words, “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father”, with th e filioque, which he considers a western theologoumenon,
seeking from the western side to explain the same words in the Creed, which
are taken to imply, in a non-explicit way, a relation of the Spirit to the Son.
• Dumitru Staniloae (Orthodox) is honorary professor of dogmatic theology at the
Theological Faculty in Bucharest, Romania.
1 “Thesen liber das Filioque’’, Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift (1898).
The basis of our deification and adoption 175
In receiving the proposed formula as acceptable to the Orthodox Church,
i.e. the formula which Bolotov and Garrigues regard as effecting a synthesis,
we would nonetheless point out that the word alone (from the Father alone)
is not a mere theologoumenon, but a point of faith, since it does nothing
more than express, in another form, the monarchy of the Father which is
based on the scriptures and affirmed by all the Fathers of the first Christian
centuries. Furthermore, the easterners were forced to make use of the word
alone in order to reaffirm the monarchy of the Father, as a consequence of
the fact that the westerners had begun to use the filioque which contradicted
this monarchy as it was expressed in the Creed itself.
St Gregory Palamas says: “When you hear in the Creed that the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father, understand at once that we necessarily
understand the word ‘alone’ as well, and so do not think of that word as an
addition of ours, but rather think that we have added it in the discussion
with you for the sake of the truth which you have destroyed.” 2
On the other hand, since the filioque destroys both the doctrine of the
Fathers concerning the monarchy of the Father, and the expression of our
common faith in the Creed, we consider it to be placed beyond the border
of theologoumena and in the realm of error, for it must be accepted that
theologoumena are explanations of what is understood implicitly in a formula
of faith and not contradictions of it. Otherwise it would be impossible to tell
the difference between a theologoumenon and an error. St Gregory Palamas
says: “Since He who begets is overflowing divinity and source of divinity
. . . and since only the Father is overflowing divinity and source of divinity,
as Dionysius the Areopagite and the great Athanasius say, the Son as a
consequence is of the Father alone according to nature . . . while he who is
according to grace is not of the Father alone but of the Father by the Son.
And the Spirit who comes forth from God by nature, proceeds naturally
from God, and he who proceeds, overflows from God, overflows from the
overflowing divinity who is the Father alone.” 3 “Do you see then, that this
iittle word ‘alone’ which we have added is simply an illustration of the truth?
For whether we use it or not, the meaning is the same. But your word
( filioque ) is not only an addition in the proper sense of the word, but indeed
a contradiction and destruction of the meaning of the true faith.” 4 If the
expression that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone was only a theo-
2 P. Christou (ed.), The Works of Gregory Palamas (in Greek), Vol I. Thessaloniki,
1962, p. 31.
3 Ibid., pp. 37-8.
4 Ibid. , pp. 38-9.
176 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
logoumenon and not a correct explicitation of a point of faith, then one
could consider the expression, “the Son is begotten of the Father alone” as
also only a theologoumenon. But when one says that Christ is the Son of
the Father, “does one not think and does one not understand by that also
the word ‘alone’, that the Son is begotten of the Father alone, even if the
word ‘alone’ is not added?” 5
But all the same, we consider the Bolotov-Garrigues formula as acceptable
to the Orthodox Church, even though we do not consider it as uniting in
itself the words “of the Father alone” and th efilioque. For this formula has
also been used in Orthodoxy in the past. St Gregory Palamas says: “The
Spirit has his existence from the Father of the Son, because he who causes
the Spirit to proceed is also Father.” 6 “Recognize that it is not from any-
where else (that the Spirit has his existence) but only from him who also
begets the Son (ck ixovcru kcxl tov Ylov yevvwvTos)”.7
But although we would consider the formula, “the Spirit proceeds from
the Father, who begets the Son” as acceptable to Orthodoxy, we do not
think that the flioque is contained in this formula (the quotation from
Palamas given above would also exclude this), for in this case one would
also grant the Son a role in the Spirit’s coming into existence, and this would
contradict the first part of the proposition. This formula which Father
Garrigues considers to be a formula of concord simply underlines the fact
that the Father causes the Spirit to proceed from himself in order to com-
municate him to his Son, in order to be more united with the Son by the
Spirit. This formula emphasizes at the same time that the Son remains Son
in relations to the Father, in his quality as the Father who is the overflowing
source of the Spirit. For only so can the Spirit be for the Son, the Spirit of
the Son of the Father; and for the Father, the Spirit of the Father of the
Son.
Otherwise the Spirit whom we receive from the Son would no more give
us the quality of sons of the Father according to grace, but would rather
make us fathers; and the Son himself, if the Spirit also proceeded from him,
would also become the Father of the Spirit. In this sense, the Patriarch
Gregory of Cyprus says, with St John Damascene: “We call him the Spirit
of the Son, but we do not say that he comes from the Son, for these two
affirmations are in contradiction.” 8 That is to say that if the Spirit also
5 Op. cit., p. 38.
6 Op. cit., p. 46.
7 Ibid.
8 PG 142, col. 240.
The basis of our deification and adoption 177
comes from the Son, he would no more be the Spirit of the Son, but would
be exclusively the Spirit of the Father. Consequently the ftlioque is opposed
to our adoption as sons by the Spirit of the Son.
Even Fr Garrigues, feeling that th e ftlioque as it is understood in the West
cannot have a place in the formula “the Spirit proceeds from the Father who
begets the Son”, in the course of his presentation makes a modification to
the ftlioque. He presents this modified form as a personal proposition be-
lieving that it is not opposed to the first part of the formula which he
considers in agreement with Bolotov and acceptable to the whole of
Christendom.
He modifies the expression: “The Spirit who proceeds from the Father
and the Son ( qui ex Patre, ftlioque procedit )” into the expression: “The
Spirit who proceeds out of the Father and from the Son ( qui ex Patre et a
Filio procedit) We remark that this modified expression no longer coincides
properly speaking with the ftlioque, for it affirms a distinction between the
Father and the Son in what they give to the Holy Spirit, while the ftlioque
confounds the Father and the Son in the common impersonal substance,
following the interpretation of Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas,
that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from a single
principle ( tanquam ab uno principio), an interpretation which Fr Garrigues
admits has never acquired an ecumenical character.
We notice again that in his explanation of the formula he proposes, Fr
Garrigues uses the word originates for the relation between the Father and
the Son, and the word proceeds for the relation between the Son and the
Spirit. For him the difference between these two words corresponds to the
difference between eKTropeueToa and TTpoeim, as used by the Fathers. He
says: “In taking his origin from the one Father who begets the one Son, the
Spirit proceeds out of the Father as origin, by his Son.” In Greek: €k p,ovov
tctu IlaTpos tov fiovo7€VTj yevvdjvToq eKTropeuop-evov, e£ auTou Kal airo tou
‘Ylou TTpotiCTL. In Latin: Ex unico Patre generante Unicum Filium ortus, ex
Patre et a Filio procedit.
This formula renders the real positive step towards the eastern doctrine,
taken by Fr Garrigues, more explicit. But we judge it preferable not to use
the word “proceed” for the relation of the Spirit to the Son, since it can
give the impression of a confusion of this relation with the procession of the
Spirit from the Father. It would be preferable to use the word “procession”
for the relation of the Spirit to the Father, and for his relation to the Son,
the term “goes out from” doubled with other terms like “shines out from”
or “is manifested by”, terms which have been used by the eastern Fathers.
The use of these latter terms for what the Spirit receives from the Son as
178 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
distinct from what he receives from the Father can, without doubt, form the
basis of unity for the whole of Christianity in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.9
But with a view to this there is a further question to be elucidated. Fr
Garrigues believes that the expression “goes out (in his usage: procedit)
from the Son ( afilio)’ ’, refers only to the eternal relation between the Spirit
and the Son. (Perhaps this is why he prefers to say procedit and not “goes
out”.) He does not consider the use of this expression for the sending of the
Spirit by the Son to creation. This latter usage he sees as linked to the
doctrine of the uncreated energies in the East, which in his view, should be
considered as less than a theologoumenon, and also to the western theory
which sees the relations between the divine Persons always and exclusively
in terms of the relations of origin of one from the others.
We would consider that this lack of interest in the sending of the Spirit
into the world, as uncreated energy, comes from the loss in the West of the
doctrine of man’s deification and adoption by God. In the West the relations
between the divine Persons are seen almost exclusively as an inner-trinitarian
question, and thus as a question of speculative theology without conse-
quences in practical life, or in the salvation of man understood as his
transformation.
In the East the trinitarian relations are seen as the basis for the relation
of the Trinity to creation and for the salvation of creation.
Thus, in the East, it is not denied that at the origin of the sending of the
Spirit by the Son there is a special eternal relationship between the Son and
the Spirit, just as there is such an eternal relationship between the Father
and the Son at the origin of the sending of the Son into the world. In the
West, on the other hand, one avoids drawing from the eternal relation of
the Spirit to the Son, the conclusion that the Spirit is sent to men for a work
which consists essentially in the deification and adoption of man.
The trinitarian relations and the Orthodox doctrine of the uncreated
energies brought into the world by the Holy Spirit
This fact is closely linked with the misunderstanding of the uncreated
energies by which the Holy Spirit works in the world. This fact keeps God
shut in on himself, as an object of pure speculation at a distance. The Spirit
who, according to Catholic theology, produces a created grace in mankind,
himself remains on a transcendent level. He does not, by his energies which
9 It is true that, according to St Gregory Palamas, St Basil uses the word irpoeiat for
the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, and he uses the same word for the
begetting of the Son. Op. cit., p. 46.
The basis of our deification and adoption 179
become the energies of man, make himself the subject of these energies in
man, united with the human subject, himself as Person come down into the
level of human existence, raising man to the divine level, making him
Spirit-bearing and deifying him. In this perspective, the sending of the Spirit
by the Son to men rather signifies that the Spirit rests in those who are
united with the Son, since he rests in the Son. The Spirit does not go beyond
the Son, even when we say improperly that he is sent to men. The Son is
the only and ultimate resting place of the Spirit. The Spirit dwells in us
insofar as we are raised up in the Son. This safeguards us from a theological
rationalism on the one side and a purely sentimental enthusiasm on the
other.
It must be noticed that the doctrine of the real sending of the Spirit into
the world by the Son as the subject of the uncreated energies which he
brings is not a doctrine invented by St Gregory Palamas; it has been the
conviction and experience of Christians since the time of the apostles. The
apostles were clothed with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came
upon them on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:5; Luke 24:29), and with this
power they worked miraculous healings. (Acts 3:7; 5:15; 9:34,40). The same
Spirit passed from them to those who heard their preaching with faith. The
Spirit has purified the saints through the whole course of Christian history.
The Incarnate Word himself promised the real sending of the Holy Spirit
by himself, the Spirit whom he receives from the Father, in his character as
the Son united with the Father. He says: “When the Spirit comes whom I
shall send from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,
he will bear witness to me” (John 15:26). We shall see, a little further on,
that according to St Gregory Palamas, the sending of the Spirit by the Son
who receives him from the Father, does not mean that the Son receives the
Spirit from the Father only when he sends him out, but that he always has
the Spirit within him, given by the Father. He has the Spirit as a “Treasurer”
(Tanias). “For, according to St Gregory Nazianzen, Christ as God and the
Son of God is the Treasurer of the Spirit. But the Treasurer (Distributor)
does not offer what he gives on his own behalf, although being God of God
by nature, he has the Holy Spirit within him, who goes forth (TTpotov)
naturally from him”.10 This means that the Spirit who proceeds from the
Father is “placed” or resides in the Son. We must notice that the relation
between the Son as Treasurer and Distributor of the Spirit (thus also as a
personified Treasury) and the Spirit as content or personified Treasure of
the Treasurer, is not only a relation of consubstantiality (for in this case
10 Op. cit ., p. 57.
180 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
there would no longer be a distinction between them) but a relation between
Person and Person, certainly based on the fact that they are of the same
essence. Only this interpersonal relationship between the Son and the Spirit
makes of the first the Treasurer of the Spirit, and his Distributor. Otherwise,
why should the Father not be the Treasurer and Distributor of the Spirit?
But we receive the Spirit only through the Son, in order that we may become
sons of God by grace. This is why he who gives us the Spirit must be on the
one side God, and on the other the Son of God. St Gregory Palamas says
just this in these words: “Christ is, and is called, the Treasurer of the Spirit,
as he who is the true Son of God.” 11 It is, then, his quality as Son, not
simply as God consubstantial with another divine Person, which makes the
hypostatic Word the Divine Treasurer, the place of the Spirit’s repose.
The Fathers of the Church used the words “going forth” or “manifesta-
tion” of the Spirit from the Son, rather in this sense of a real sending to
creation. St Cyril of Alexandria, for instance, says: “The three hypostases
whom we worship are known and confessed as Father without origin, only
Son, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, not by birth as the
Son, but by procession, as it is said, from the Father alone as from a mouth,
but who is shown by the Son and who has spoken by the Son in all the holy
prophets and apostles.” 12 And St John Damascene says: “We say of the
Holy Spirit that he is the Spirit of the Son, but we do not say of him that he
is from the Son, but that he is revealed by the Son and has been communi-
cated to us by him.” 13
The active repose of the Holy Spirit in the Son
But St Athanasius speaks both of a sending and of a shining forth of the
Spirit from the Son, the sending being temporal, the manifestation being
considered as eternal. He says: “Since the Son is one, the living and one
Spirit must also be the full and perfect life and being his energy (evepyeia)
and gift, who is said to proceed from the Father, but who shines out and is
sent and given by the Word who is known by the Father.” 14 Thus we can
say that St Athanasius considers the sending of the Spirit by the Son to
creation to be based on his eternal shining forth from the Son.
In a still more explicit way, St John Damascene speaks of a special eternal
relation between the Spirit and the Son as the foundation of the sending of
11 Op. cit., p. 56.
12 Gregory Palamas, op. cit., p. 47.
13 PG 94, co. 832-833 A.
14 Ad Serap. I. p. 26, 565-568.
The basis of our deification and adoption 181
the Spirit into the world by the Son when he says: “We have learned that
the Spirit is he who accompanies (cru|ji7rapo|jiapTouv) the Word and who
reveals his operation (energy).” 15
But it is the Byzantine theologians of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies who have made the eternal relation between the Spirit and the Son
still more explicit, seeing it as the basis of the sending of the Spirit by the
Son. Thus St Gregory Palamas, quoting the former proposition of St John
Damascene, adds: “To accompany (crup/rrapo|juxpT€iv) means to be together
(cruvaKo\ou0€Lv), as he himself says. Thus the Spirit is not of the Son, but
he is of the Father with the Son, insofar as the procession accompanies
(ouvaKo\ov0o\3aTis) the begetting, without temporal separation or
distance.” 16
Basing himself on St John Damascene, St Gregory Palamas, as we have
already mentioned, sees not only an inseparable link between the procession
of the Spirit from the Father and the begetting of the Son by the Father, but
also the “repose” of the Spirit in the Son as in a Treasurer (that is as a
personified Treasury). He says: “We must hear the divine Damascene who
writes in the Eighth Chapter of his Dogmatic, ‘We believe also in the Holy
Spirit who proceeds from the Father and reposes in the Son’.”17 For this
reason, Christ is called the Treasurer of the Spirit. 18
The “repose” of the Spirit as Treasure, in the Son as Treasurer, shows
the special relation between the Spirit and the Son more than the insepar-
ability between the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the begetting
of the Son from the same Father. The Son is the living, personal, spiritual
“place” of the “repose” of the Spirit. He is the place where the Spirit dwells
as if at home. He proceeds from the Father with a view to his “repose” in
the Son. The one cannot be thought of without the other. The procession
from the Father and the repose in the Son, as in his own dwelling place,
belong together. The procession of the Spirit from the Father finds its final
fulfilment in his repose in the Son, as in a personal dwelling place, beloved
of the Spirit. But the Son is begotten as a personal dwelling place, happy to
have the Treasure of the Spirit in himself, the Spirit who rests in the Son
because he has all his joy in him, the fullness of joy. We shall see further
15 PG 94, col. 805 A,B. The expression is almost literally borrowed by St John
Damascene from St Gregory of Nyssa, PG 45.17. The word (ruiATrapop-apTeiv is also
used by St Gregory Nazianzen.
16 Gregory Palamas, op. cit., p. 53.
17 PG 94, col. 821 B.
18 Gregory Palamas, op. cit., p. 56.
182 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
on how towards the end of his life, St Gregory Palamas developed the idea
of the Spirit as the one in whom the Father rejoices with the Son.
But we also are raised up in the Son, who is the eternal, filial dwelling
place of the Spirit and with the Son we too become eternal, filial habitations
for the Spirit. This is why the eternal relation of the Son to the Spirit is the
basis of the sending of the Spirit to us by the Son.
Aspects of the special relation between the Holy Spirit and the Son as
defined in Byzantine theology
Going further, St Gregory Palamas gives a quotation of Dionysius the
Areopagite who says the same thing in a still bolder way, stressing more
strongly the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Considering this, let us
worship the Source of life (the Father, source of the Holy Spirit), who pours
himself out in himself (in the Son), seeing him resting in himself.” 19 The
Father, pouring out his life, for he is not a God without life, nor a God shut
upon monopersonal egotism, can only fully pour it out in himself (for no
other can fully contain him), but in himself as in “another himself’ (aXXos
ecarros), as St Gregory of Nyssa somewhere names the Son. The infinite
source of life must have a goal for his generosity to which he can give his
life, a goal which on the one side must be distinct from himself - to satisfy
his generosity - but on the other side must not be outside himself. This unity
without confusion - the greatest paradox of love - can only exist between
Persons of the same essence.
But already before St Gregory Palamas, the special eternal relation be-
tween the Spirit and the Son as the basis of the sending of the Spirit into the
world by the Son had received more articulate precision in the thought of
Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus (1283-89). He calls this eternal special relation
between the Spirit and the Son the “manifestation” or “shining forth” of
the Spirit through the Son, thus giving a dynamic meaning to the word
“repose”.
The Treasure shines out, revealing itself, from the Treasury; it is not
hidden within. This “manifestation” or “shining forth” is not, according to
Gregory of Cyprus, temporally separated from the procession of the Spirit
from the Father, but accompanies it. If St Gregory Palamas, following St
John Damascene, speaks of an inseparable accompaniment of the begetting
of the Son by the Father by the procession of the Spirit from the same
Father, Gregory of Cyprus speaks of an accompaniment of the begetting of
19 Dionysius the Areopagite, PG 3, col. 1104 B, C.
The basis of our deification and adoption 183
the Son by the manifestation of the Spirit by the Son.20 The accompaniment
of the begetting of the Son by the procession of the Spirit is a manifested
accompaniment. For, without doubt, it is only if the begetting of the Son by
the Father is accompanied by the procession of the Spirit from the Father,
that the begetting of the Son can also be accompanied by the manifestation
or shining forth of the Spirit. But if the accompaniment of the begetting of
the Son by the procession of the Holy Spirit from the same Father is on the
one hand the more profound fact, on the other it leaves it possible for us to
think in terms of a certain parallelism between the two cases. But the
accompaniment of the begetting and in general of the Person of the Son by
the manifest shining out of the Spirit demonstrates that there is an inner
dynamic presence of the Spirit in the Son. That is why it employs the
expressions “through” or “from” the Son, words which cannot be used of
the procession itself. At the same time the shining out of the Spirit through
or from the Son constitutes the basis for the shining out of the Spirit through
or from the Son to the created world.
But Gregory of Cyprus does not neglect to explain that the shining out of
the Spirit through the Son is the consequence of the procession of the Spirit
I from the Father, and thus one could say the consequence of the link between
the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the begetting of the Son by
the Father. For this reason Gregory of Cyprus does not avoid the use of
some common terms to express the procession of the Spirit from the Father
and his shining out from the Son. Thus he says that the Father is the
originator (TrpoPoXeus) of the Spirit in the double sense that he is the cause
of the procession of the Spirit from himself, and the cause of his shining out
from the Son. By sending him (ttpoPoXti), Gregory understands the double
but inseparable activity of the procession of the Spirit from the Father and
his shining out from the Son, on account of the procession from the Father.21
In this we see a perfect union between the Persons of the Holy Trinity
brought about by the Father. The Father does not beget the Son, and does
not cause the Spirit to proceed as two separate actions, as two Persons who
remain separated; but the begetting and the procession, although distinct,
are united. Consequently the Person of the Son and the Person of the Spirit
also remain united, or interior, to one another. But Gregory of Cyprus
constantly insists that the Spirit, although he shines out from the Son, on
20 PG 142, col. 250 C. T-qv 8ia tou Yiou aiSiov €K<t>avcnv ouvTpexovcrav kgil ovve-
'iravoovp.einqv tt) €k tou IlaTpos auTou eis to etvoa TrpooS^o.
21 Op. cit. col. 242 B. Ou8e TraXiv oti TrpofJoXeus 8i auTou ecrnv 6 IIaTT|p. t)8ti KaL 8i
avTaO aiTuos tori tou IIvevp,aTo<;.
184 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
account of the fact that he proceeds from the Father who also simultaneously
and inseparably begets the Son, has his existence from the Father alone.
For though the Spirit’s manifestation is by the Son, his coming into existence
is not by the Son, even if he is united to the begetting of the Son.
The fact that the procession of the Spirit is from the Father alone, but
that the shining forth is from the Son, is a consequence of the procession
from the Father alone, but united to the begetting of the Son, and this fact
is expressed by Gregory of Cyprus by affirming that the shining out from
the Son marks a progress in the existence which the Spirit receives from the
Father,22 one might say a fulfilment, the achievement of the end for which
he came into existence.
This last affirmation is very bold. At first sight it could give the impression
that the Spirit receives his full existence insofar as he shines out from the
Son. But if we remember that for Gregory of Cyprus only the Father is the
cause of the Spirit’s existence, and that for him the shining out of the Spirit
from the Son is, in the last analysis, due to the Father, being a sort of
crowning of the procession of the Spirit from the Father, then we see that
the conception of Gregory of Cyprus opens to us a door of understanding.
Without relinquishing the patristic teaching about the monarchy of the Father,
this conception puts strong emphasis on the relation of the Spirit to the Son.
Moltmann’s theory and the possibility of completing it by the relationship
of a person with his “other”
We cannot think of the Spirit without the Son. In a report presented to
the 1978 meeting at Klingenthal and then in a lecture given at the Theological
Institute in Bucharest, Prof. Moltmann put forward the idea that the Spirit
receives his existence from the Father, but that he receives his image (eiSos)
or the character of a Person, from the Son. Formulated in this way the idea
is difficult to understand. The personal character of anyone cannot be sep-
arated from his/her existence. But in Prof. Moltmann’s idea a truth which
is worth taking into consideration can be perceived. It represents a new step
towards the doctrine of the Fathers, by making a clearer distinction between
the Father and the Son in their relations with the Spirit, than the filioque
formula is able to do.
What is this truth which, in our view, is contained in the idea of Prof.
Moltmann and which we think we have been able to make clear from the
conception of Gregory of Cyprus?
22 Ibid. Tnv 7&p eis eK^avcxiv evTavda Kai eXXotp^av rqv etq to eivai irpooSov . . .
iroptoTTioxv.
The basis of our deification and adoption 185
The truth is this. The Holy Spirit is a distinct Person within the Holy
1 Trinity not only insofar as he takes his place in the communion between the
Father and the Son, but by the fact that he is linked by a special, intimate
relationship not only to the Father, but also to the Son. Furthermore, each
I Person of the Holy Trinity is a Person not only insofar as he has a relation
with the other, but insofar as he has a different relation with each of the
other two. The Holy Spirit does not receive his personal character of his
I “relational ei8os” only from the Son. He receives it from the fact of his
procession from the Father, which accompanies the begetting of the Son by
the Father, thus being placed in relation with the other two divine Persons,
that is to say, within the trinitarian communion.
Let us take the analogy of human relations. I cannot live in the fullness
of the life of another - and therefore also in my own - except by also living
my relation with his other other, thus making it my own relation; that is to
I say, in living the much richer complexity which is given him in his relation-
ship with his other other. I can say that I know my other in the light of his
other other, with whom he is linked. As for me, I must see them both
differently, not just one of them. In the same way, I cannot see the other
with whom I am in contact at this moment unless I am penetrated by the
experience of another other with whom I am linked. This other other gives
me the capacity to see and understand better the other with whom I am in
relation at this moment. Thus, no one can exist except in relation with two
other persons, and not only in a perpetually closed relationship with one
other person. The third person (third in a not rigidly fixed order) opens the
horizon which can embrace all and frees the relationship between the two
from narrowness and from a certain monotony. The personal pronouns
which reflect this reality, necessary for every person, are not only “I and
thou”, but “I, thou and he.” In order to say “I” it is not enough to say
j simply “thou”, one must also say “he”. This means that for me to express
myself as “me”, I must express myself not only in a relation to a “thou”,
but also to a “he”, who is linked both to the “thou” and to myself.
The Son sees the Father not only as he by whom he is begotten, but also
as him from whom the other proceeds, i.e. the Spirit. But in his link with
his other other, or in the procession of this one from himself, the Father
i does not forget the Son as Son, but insofar as the Third Person also proceeds
from him, all the complex richness of his relationship with the Son can be
seen. By the Spirit, the Father lives in all the richness, or in all the perfection,
; of his living relationship with the Son.
In his turn the Son knows in the light of this other, by whom the Father
lives in all the richness of his love for the Son - the Son knows his Father
186 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ
and his love towards him more fully. Not only does the Father by his link
with the Spirit live his love towards the Son in its fullness, that is to say not
only does the Son shine out brightly towards the Father in the light of the
Spirit cast by the Father on the Son, but also the Spirit is fully realized from
the Father by the Son. Only in this pure love, this complete love among the
three, is to be found a love which embraces all, which hides no egotism, no
unjust preference such as would follow from a love between the two.
The relationship between all three divine Persons is expressed by St
Gregory Palamas in this way: “No one can conceive the Word without the
Spirit, if he has understanding (thus it is not only Spirit without Word which
is inconceivable). For this reason the Word of God, born of God, has the
Holy Spirit coming forth from the Father . . . And this Spirit of the supreme
Word is like an inseparable love on the part of the One who begets the Son,
who is born in an unspeakable way. In him the beloved Son and Word of
the Father rejoices (xp^Tai) looking towards him who engenders, and having
him as if coming forth from the Father with him and resting in him by the
unity of the nature. The Son receives him from the Father as the Spirit of
Truth, of Wisdom and of the Word . . . And by him the Son rejoices
together with the Father who rejoices in the Son (os T(p Ilcn-pi err’ auTcjj
XaCpovTi aruyxatpei). For this joy of the Father and the Son since all eternity
is the Holy Spirit who is common to them in what touches profit (Kcrra-
Xpfi<riv) (the reason why he has been sent by both to those who are worthy),
but in what touches existence he is from the Father alone, for he proceeds
from him alone as far as his existence is concerned.” 23
There is a reciprocity of infinite richness in its complexity between the
Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, and it is this which gives them their fully
personal character. But there is a special reciprocity between the Son and
the Spirit which is reflected in their contact with the world. The Son by
himself transmits the Spirit to those who believe in him. But only through
the Spirit is the Son known by those who believe. The Spirit shines out from
the Son above all after the Resurrection and since the day of Pentecost. But
it is exactly on account of this that the face of the Son gains its radiance,
and its divine reality (visible or invisible) is intensely felt through the Spirit,
or in the measure that the Spirit is communicated by the Son. Thus one can
say that the Son makes the Spirit accessible to us, but that the Spirit in his
turn makes the Son accessible in his divine interiority, where by the Spirit,
we know the Son and rise to the Father in a pure life and in prayer.
23 Capita theologica, Philocalia graeca, 2nd ed. Athens, 1893, p. 315.
Recited by millions of Christians for sixteen centuries, the Niceno-Constan-
tinopolitan Creed is a majestic affirmation of the fundamental truths of their
common apostolic faith. Yet the contested wording of one article of that
Creed proved to be a source - and has become a symbol - of the rift between
the churches of the East and of the West which persists to this day. The point
at issue is at once theologically central and extraordinarily complex : it is the
question of the role played by the Son in the eternal procession of the Holy
Spirit from the Father.
In consultations organized by the Faith and Order Commission of the
World Council of Churches in 1978 and 1979, theologians from both tradi-
tions discussed the so-called filioque - “and from the Son” - formula, whose
inclusion in the western but not the eastern version of the Creed as a description
of the Spirit’s procession causes the controversy. This volume includes a
report which emerged from those meetings and allied discussions, along with
the papers presented at the consultations.
The restoration of unity between East and West is inconceivable without
agreement here. In the struggle for such agreement, the entire trinitarian
understanding of God sets the context, making this a key issue for developing
common theological, spiritual, and liturgical perspectives. It is hoped that the
study represented in these papers will contribute significantly to a more visible
unity as the churches respond together to their calling in the years ahead.
WCC ISBN 2 8254 0662 7
SPCK ISBN 0 281 03820 1
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